As a little girl I grew up believing in fairy tales, magic dust and "Once Upon a Time." It would be wonderful if life was really that simple. I had a wonderful childhood with Leave it to Beaver, The Brady Bunch, and Happy Days, and I truly believed life was going to be easy, peazy, lemon squeezy! Grrrr, fairy tales aren't real, magic dust flares up my allergies, and once upon a time, well, it really goes like this...
I love my siblings and I was surrounded by wonderful parents who made each day seem like a stroll in the park. My life was perfect in every way until I moved out of their home and into mine own. That's when my suspicions began and I realized my life would never be the same!
Suddenly, I was thrust into the world where I came face to face with reality and stopped long enough to ask the proverbial question, "Who's going to pay for all this stuff?" It's amazing how wonderful life can be when someone else is taking care of you, but when you become the gate keeper, life rears it's ugly head! The truth can no longer be hidden. What our parents don't tell us about the future is for our own good because if we really knew what was out there - we'd never leave home!
It all began when I had children of my own. That's when life started to snowball into an avalanche and before I knew it, it was too late! As a wife and mother, I truly understood the old adage "a day late and a dollar short", which eventually became my national anthem.
If you have had the opportunity of parenting children, then you will understand exactly where I am coming from. I've been puked on, spit at, lifted up, let down, peed on, put off, sneezed upon, drooled over, locked in, locked out, bit, scratched, pinched, poked, and prodded. I have "loved it beyond measure" since the wonderful miracle of my first born child. It wasn't long thereafter that I delivered six more luscious little bundles of joy within the span of nine years, which multiplied those experiences a ten fold.
In the mid 70's, I stood tall in my fluorescent polyester shirt and denim bell bottoms. I had one child on my hip and surrounded by three more ankle biters with little arms and elbow flying in all directions. Most of my days were spent changing dirty diapers, wiping snotty noses, crawling across the kitchen floor on my hands and knees, and wondered how in the world Mother Teresa could build an orphanage in the middle of a third world country and still manage to keep her clothing pearly white.
Ask me if I am crazy and I would have to admit, absoooolutely! I was crazy in love with the colorful faces and abounding energy nipping at my heals 24-7, 365 days a year, for - the - rest - of - my - life! One might think that somewhere lurking deep within my reality, I would be scared straight, (after having seven children) but over the years we fostered five additional children only to discover that love has an even greater power when it's shared with others.
Over the span of about 25 years, I've attended the funeral services of approximately 11 goldfish, 3 gerbils, 9 cats, 4 dogs, 2 hamsters, 1 parakeet, 3 hermit crabs, 2 ferrets... and a partridge in a pair tree! Seriously, our backyard started to look like Arlington National Cemetery and according to the children there was absolutely no place left in our yard to play without walking upon sacred ground.
When I am asked, "who am I?" I proudly proclaim, "I am the mother of a small American village" although, we didn't grow up in a grass hut with a thatched roof and dirt floors, there were many times I felt we were very close to being there. The nights were short, the days were long, and there was always "too much month at the end of the money," but we never had a dull moment and surrounded ourselves in love and adventure!
My children created their own versions of Fear Factor long before the television program. It was called, "Let's Scare the Life Out of Mom!" I have found a pollywog in my jewelry box (David), a mason jar in the freezer containing one black widow spider for a much needed science project (Brian), one of my expensive leather boots in the washing machine (Jared), fire crackers in our Halloween pumpkins (David), a real pighead man dummy on my front porch (crazy neighbors, 1,000 hot angry grasshoppers in the mailbox (David and Jared), dried up lizards in the sock drawer (Gabriel) and a list of crazies that go on, and on, and on!
Years later when all my children were raised and starting families of their own, I began to feel anxious and concerned my life would become mundane, or without purpose. Wrong again! I was delighted to learn I had become the spectator in this magnificent arena called life. With my winning ticket in hand, I proudly took a front row seat to watch the circus begin! Now, it was my turn to sit back, snack on caramel corn, and enjoy the production of "Once Upon a Time, Second Generation!" With a sigh of relief and a twinkle in my eye, I was reaping the rewards of what I had sown in watching my children raise theirs and my cup was indeed full.
Throughout the years, there were many ripples in the pond, and the most powerful to be that of love and kindness. For these characteristics carried the waves all the way to the distant shore! One fine day, we will all have the opportunity to look over our lives and examine to see what we have created. There is nothing I would change, (except for maybe a few bad hairdos) and I can say that, "I would do it over again in a heart beat!"
