IN MY OWN WORDS..........Who'd have thunk it....

Who'd have thunk I would be smart enough to figure out how to do this?  I'm 73 years and counting and when I learned to type, I used a manual typewriter with an ink tape and a throw carriage, and still managed to type over 100 words a minutes!  Times have sure changed......I'm not so sure they are all so good.  

I've learned some good things though.  I learned to be patient.  You need to be patient when you have children.  I have three.  All grown now.  You need to be patient when you have to be the care giver of aging parents.  They depend on you just like the children do.  You don't let any of them down no matter what so patience is of utmost importance.  But it comes pretty easily since the love you have for them comes first and the patience falls right in behind.  

I've learned to be resilient.  You have to learn to bounce!  There are times when you get so low down you feel you'll never get up.  But you know what, you do!  I've bounced back up so many times, I've felt like a rubber ball.  

I've learned to laugh.  Now that one took a long time.  Laughing didn't come easy for me because I grew up being a serious, straight, black or white, (no grey) , person.  And, I guess to some extent I still am.  But, I finally learned that sweating the small stuff isn't important and learned to see some humor in things that was there all the time but I just wouldn't allow myself to laugh at it.  Now, I laugh at things that maybe others don't even think are funny.  I even create things to laugh at!  It's good for my soul!  I enjoy laughing and enjoy seeing others laugh!

I've learned compassion for the elderly.  After my Mom died, I felt a deep need to do something to make a difference in the life of someone who didn't have anyone in their life to visit them or make them happy in some way.  I knew how much it meant to Mother for me and my brother to visit her and anybody else that she knew.  She was in a nursing home and although she was infirm and blind, she had her mental capabilities and was miserable without someone to talk to.  So, I vowed to try to do something for someone to give back what I could to society in her memory.  

I've learned that I can't fix everything for everybody.  I can't make my children perfect nor can I make their children perfect for them and so on down the line.  I can't pick money off trees, I can't go back and unsay things that have been said and  undo things that have been done.  So what?  I am where I am.  I am WHO I am.  God loves me JUST as I am.  Thank you God for giving me all that I have and allowing me to be the unworthy soul that I am today.