Love Thursday #2 Being Goofy

Remember how you used to play with funny eye-glasses just to make your cousins laugh?

...and your little dog too?

Love Thursday is a Chookooloonks creation.

Making Peace

Human Peace Sign--Budapest--2006--Google Images

I don’t recall meeting my biological father until I was about twelve years old. My mom met my stepdad when I was four days old and he was the man who raised me as his daughter.

My two older sisters remember our parent’s marriage. I do not. They clearly resemble our bio-dad, but I do not.  This never bothered me, until I moved out of the house. As a child, I learned bio-dad wasn’t well thought of in our home and that he had been known to mistreat people once or thrice. The message I got was that he never deserved to be in our lives.

 No longer living at home, I made a decision to get to know my biological father better, to complete that missing part of my DNA. I knew we had Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and migraine headaches in common.  It would take many years before I would find a more admirable connection with him.   

As I started my relationship with him at 22 years old, he would tell me stories about the feral cats that began showing up in his back yard.  At first it was one or two cats, then they began having babies.  Hearing about his wild cats was pleasing to me, and in some way I felt closer to him because of it.

Many years later, a feral cat showed up in my backyard.   His coat was matted and part of his ear was missing.  I made friends with this cat and his health improved. He let me pet him and care for him.   If you’ve ever nursed an animal back to health, you know that’s a special relationship.

Only recently did I make the connection that my fascination with animals, and taking care of them was something I shared with my bio Dad.  I’ve chosen to see his more admirable qualities, knowing that there is at least a little good in anyone if we look close enough.  

--Leah from The Daily Piglet

It all Matters, Even TV

Grandma Gillespie was a semi-invalid curmudgeon, and in my senior year of high school, she moved in with us. Mom and my stepdad had started a restaurant business which kept them busy until late into the night.  So grandma's care, from the time I got home from school until she went to bed, was left to me, the obstinate teenager. My twelve year-old brother Johnny was trapped in the crossfire.

Grandma hated having to be cared for and she hated moving away from her lifetime home in North Carolina.  Her daily gloom infected Johnny and me, so our days were a series of scowling contests. The TV show The Jeffersons saved our lives.  

We all liked to watch the show and I liked to make Johnny laugh, so I bopped around the den singing that upbeat Jefferson’s theme song into my hairbrush microphone.  Mid-dance, I caught my grandmother,  doubled over laughing.   Eyes squeezed shut, tears rolling, laughing.  In that moment, everything slowed down and I could hear my own heart beating.  I saw that she was no crabby old woman who hated life—she was just a girl who was sad who wanted to laugh, too.  

I realized attitude meant everything and when I changed mine, she changed hers. The three of us laughed regularly after that.  I've never regretted that change of heart and Grandma's last year with us at home in Charleston was one of our best.

--LoLaSuzanne

SoulCollage Card by LoLaSuzanne (photographs originally from Nat'l Geographic Magazine)

Grace in Small Things

I just posted my first entry over at Grace in Small Things:

GiST Numero Uno (things I'm grateful for)

1. Judge and Punk, two little heartbeats running around my house making me smile, stamp my feet, crack up, and press on.

2. My brother, whose kindnesses match infinity.

3. Mom, who everyday, strives for a great attitude, and a fresh outlook, and works to buck up and who is always open to love.

4. Daddy, who everyday, finds a practical way to feed, make comfortable and love my stepmother who is classily fading into Alzheimers.

5. The yard dudes who swarm over the lawn like locusts, cutting and sawing, and trimming and leaf blowing. And then swarm out.

I know the above are all big things, especially the yard dudes, but how can you leave out your immediate family, at least on the first day? I'll write about that little guy at the drugstore who helped me clean up the mess I made when I dropped the Lysol bottle on aisle 3 eventually.

I love the idea of writing five things I'm grateful for every day (or, let's face it, most days) in a place reserved for honoring those things. If you'd like to get in the habit of writing down your five things-- here is a great place to do that.

--LoLaSuzanne

Photos: Boston Terrier Judge by LoLaSuzanne

Schipperke-ish Punk by LoLaSuzanne