THANKFUL FRIDAY

Thursday morning, we all woke up around here to a thin layer of snow coating everything outside. The skies remained dark for most of the day, a stark contrast to the previous days. Our first week and a half of January has been fairly mild with temperatures reaching sixty degrees during the day and bright sunlight flooding in through all of the windows. The weather helped erase the memory of the deathly freezing temps we had around the holidays.

January is a yo-yo month for many reasons.

I received a card from my mother early in the week and I can see where she started to write my brother’s name, then my sister’s name before finally landing on mine on the envelope. This is an old habit. I do not remember a time when, while calling to me from another room, my mother didn’t run through the names of her previous children before settling on mine. I have always been some form of RandyJanellRaJaCindy. It has never bothered me because I know my mother was keeping track of all of the things at once, making sure we were at piano lessons or dance class or band or choir practice. On top of all of that was her career and maintaining a household. Sure, my dad helped out as best as he knew how, but he wasn’t the one laying on the floor of the sewing room while I attempted to construct my 4-H sewing projects. My mother’s only saving grace was that our age differences made us three separate children.

The lessons I have learned and continue to learn from my mother are invaluable. I have learned through her examples of strength and independence to be the strong capable woman I am today. My mother celebrates a birthday on Sunday, another year of survival. In spite of her beliefs and views on growing older, I am truly grateful to be able to celebrate another year of her life. My wish for her is that her day is filled with good wishes, sunshine that floods her windows and creates dancing rainbow reflections, ease, and the knowledge that she is loved.