January 21 – A Daughter, Sand Angels, and the Sun

by Tania Pryputniewicz

I woke curmudgeonly grumpy from a tangle of blankets, one son’s knees grazing my spine, husband and Husky hugging the far wall. At my feet, my middle son. Parallel to the bed on the floor, my twelve year old daughter, hair smothered by pillows as I turned off the alarm. Transplanted from northern to southern California, I should have been overjoyed after three years of two-city living without my husband to be reunited under one roof.

But I’d acquired a hyper-vigilance due to raising our children alone–a “too-little-to-go-around” self whose reaction to any sentence starting with, “Mom” opened with, “What?…can’t you see I’m….” x, y, z. My daughter, with infinite patience last year, drew note after note decorated with rainbow letters, “Can I come down for tea with you tonight?” Fatigued, as hard as I tried, I felt locked in internal sorrow, afraid I’d never rise above our circumstances to be larger of heart.

I feel my shortcomings as a mom most intensely in relation to my daughter. Because we are both firstborns? Female? Because her brothers’ needs seem easier? I only know I’m more conflicted with her. And she has no qualms about letting me know how I’ve failed her. Which took me to some dark places last year (given the struggle to raise the children, work, hold down the fort, and stave off the ever present poet’s dream of writing a poem worthy of eternity).

But even as we wrangled, I understood the only way was “through”–not over, not around, not under, but through. The sun would rise; I’d try again. Some nights we had tea; others I deferred to stacks of student papers, dishes, or her brothers, especially during the month the littlest broke his elbow and needed surgery.

We’ve only been in the new city for two weeks, but my shoulders have dropped several inches now that two adults absorb the field of the kids’ needs. The one place that soothes all of us remains the ocean, mercifully close by here as it was up north, so instinctively, we keep the ritual.

Within moments, I’m photographing patterns–the retreating waves make sand angels below each beached pebble everywhere I look. My girl comes abreast of me and delights in the find. My husband salvages a purple bucket and one tiny green plastic soldier; the boys catapult down the sand dunes. The Husky runs leashless in wide arcs, nipping at the waves.

Dusk finds my daughter and I walking together. She’s willowy, lovely, inching towards adolescence. Hard to believe soon she’ll yearn less and less for my attention. I ask her to stop long enough for a double self-portrait. Finally, we get it right, shoulder to shoulder, positioning the setting sun so it crowns half of her face. We found that when you tilt just far enough apart, the light of the sun breaks into a gold-red fan of spokes across both faces like a blessing.

Tania lives in southern California with her husband, three children, husky, and two disoriented housecats still recovering from the move. A poet by night (MFA, Iowa Writers’ Workshop) and a writing teacher by day, she is heading into her second year of teaching Transformative Blogging for SCN (next class starts February 4th) and is writing a book for women bloggers.

January 2 – A Grandma is Born

by Linda Hoye

January 2, 2009

The phone rings just before 6 a.m. as I’m throwing a Lean Cuisine into my bag and getting ready to race out the door for work. It’s my daughter, Laurinda and it’s the phone call I’ve been waiting for.

“We’re going to the hospital,” she tells me quietly when I pick up the phone.

We talk briefly and after we end our call, I do a little dance I’ve perfected over the past nine months and dubbed the “grandma dance.” Then I race upstairs to my office where I log on to my computer and search for the earliest flight that will take me from Seattle, Washington to Calgary Alberta. I don’t think twice as I enter my credit card numbers on the airline website to pay the exorbitant fee for a last-minute reservation; I wouldn’t miss being there to welcome my grandchild into the world no matter how much it cost.

Six hours later I’ve gone from a dark and rainy Pacific Northwest morning to a frigid but sunny Canadian afternoon. The hospital lobby is alive with activity and filled with the smiling faces of people carrying stuffed animals, balloons and flowers. My gaze rests on other women who appear to be near my age and I share a subtle smile with them. I feel like I’m about to become a new member of an exclusive club I’ve longed to join, and the “grandma smile” is like the secret handshake.

When I arrive on the labor and delivery floor and locate the swinging doors that lead me toward pending grandma-hood, I shove them open and confidently step into the ward. The nurse at the desk looks up and inquires if I am the mother of an expectant mother on the ward.

Can’t you tell by the crazy grin on my face? I want to ask her, but instead I just smile my goofy grandma-smile and nod.

              Later….

There are windows in the swinging doors between the waiting room and the labor and delivery ward. I keep an eye on those windows and every sound from behind the doors makes me stand and look down the hall in the direction of Laurinda’s room. Finally I see her husband, Gord, striding down the hall with a smile the size of the Bow River on his face.

“It’s a girl!” he exclaims as he pushes through the doors. “And she’s beautiful!”

“Congratulations, Dad!” I throw my arms around him and offer a silent prayer of thanks while I follow him back down the hall wiping tears from my eyes.

Laurinda is sitting up in bed, smiling and crying at the same time. There is an indescribable glow about her.

“Congratulations, Mommy!” I embrace her and kiss her forehead.

Satisfied that she is okay I turn toward the baby warmer. A nurse is bustling about and Gord is videotaping. They clear a path for me to get closer to the warmer. My granddaughter, eyes wide open, is looking around as if to take in the sights of this new world she has arrived in.

I reach over and gently take her tiny hand in mine as I lean over and whisper so only she can hear. “Welcome! We’ve been waiting for you!”

Linda Hoye is a devoted and somewhat-fanatical grandma who is missing her granddaughter more than usual today. She lives in Washington state with her husband and their two doted-upon Yorkshire Terriers. Linda blogs at A Slice of Life Writing.

October 1 — A Daughters Birthday

by Linda Hoye

October 1, 1978 at 11:24am.

“Push! Come on, you can do it! Keep pushing! Look down here at the mirror; the baby is coming!” The delivery room nurse urges me to look toward the mirror positioned at the end of the bed.

“I can’t see! I don’t have my glasses on.” Why didn’t someone tell me that I’d need my glasses?

I give one more push with everything that is left in me and feel my baby slip from my body.

“It’s a girl!”

They lay her on my chest, and I look into the eyes of a beautiful, dark-haired, baby.  Laurinda is crying, red-faced, and obviously distressed at being so suddenly removed from the quiet and safety of the womb. The delivery room with its bright lights and hurried voices must be overwhelming to one accustomed to the silence of the pre-birth world. As her tiny fist grasps my finger my world shifts and my identity changes. I am now a mother.

Laurinda is, as my mom says, a “good baby”. She is happy, healthy, rarely fussy, a good eater, and an easy baby to care for. She’s perfect in my eyes. I delight in watching her grow and change and seeing her personality emerge. One day her imagination sparks an idea and she takes my face in her hands and looks me straight in the eye.

“You’re the big lion and I’m the little lion.” She tells me very seriously. I am not exactly sure what she is trying to tell me.

Fast forward sixteen years.

These terrible teenage years seem to last an eternity. She seeks to establish her own identity and, in doing so, wrestles against anything and everything that smacks of “family”. Our relationship is strained during these years when she strives to be the opposite of me in every way. Her brother teases her sometimes by telling her she is “just like Mom”. It is the insult of insults to her.

Fast forward fifteen more years.

Now my baby has a baby of her own and it blesses my heart to see her care for her own daughter. Laurinda is traditional, preferring books and building blocks to video games and electronic toys. She’s a teacher, gently introducing letters, numbers, colors, and new ideas in the course of everyday life. She’s committed to her daughter’s health and has a definite policy about what she can and can’t consume.

The relationship between Laurinda and I has changed, grown, and deepened over the years. It is one of the greatest blessings in my life that I can call my daughter my friend.  The other day I was thinking about the scene in the movie The Lion King where Rafiki holds up his cub Simba, and I was reminded of my young daughter’s curious comment about me being the big lion and her being the little lion. It seems appropriate that today I symbolically stand in the place of Rafiki and hold up Laurinda. I’m proud of her and she has brought more joy into my life than I could ever have imagined on that October morning thirty-three years ago.

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

I am a full-time HR Business Analyst and a part-time writer currently on a memoir about my quest as an adoptee to find healing from deep and unrecognized grief. I nourish my muse with the taste of caramel frappuchinos, the scent of  Yankee Candles, the sound of quiet classical music, the vision of Mrs. Potato Head and Gumby and Pokey on the corner of my desk, and the feeling of my smallest Yorkie on my lap. I live in Washington state with my husband and our two doted-upon Yorkshire Terriers. When I’m not writing or working, I have the most fun spending time back in Canada with my husband, our children, and our two brilliant grandchildren. Learn more at: A Slice of Life Writing

August 14 — A Knock at the Door

by Carol Kunnerup

My cell rang during training. The kids wouldn’t call unless it was important.

Raechel was crying. ”Mom, can I move back home?”

” Of course. What do you need me to do?” She would borrow my minivan; her little zoomer would not hold much. Younger sister, Sara, would help her move out of her boyfriend’s house.

The girls picked me up after the training, seemingly in good spirits. I hugged Raechel and said we would help her figure something out. She was so independent that I could not imagine her wanting to stay for long. She would rather come by on her own for suppers, snacks and to hang out with her sister and little brother. We had all been enjoying each other this summer.

I had to collect Trevor from Vacation Bible School. She needed to go make her car payment.

”Raechel, we’ll be eating hamburgers across the street for dinner, come with.”

”I might go with friends,” she replied.

”That’s okay. I’m glad you’re here.” I told her.

‘Thanks, momma.’

I watched her walk to her silver little car. Beautiful, tan skin, cute tank top, luscious dark hair pulled back in a ponytail. She is home. I felt such joy and relief. I crossed the street to pick up Trevor from VBS, shouting, ”See you later, sweetie.”

Our regular routine, late dinner because of Peter’s long hours. We discussed how we would handle an adult child in the house. It would be a challenge for us all. Then all off to bed for us. I was wishing I had gotten her a key already.

There was a knock at the door. 1:30 a.m. Holy cow. This would definitely be a conversation with Rae tomorrow.

It was the officer Raechel had thought was so cute when he helped her unlock her car one of the times she locked herself out. Like mother like daughter.

He asked me to get dressed and come with him. Peter was sitting up in bed, wide awake and asked me if he should call Marilee to sit with the kids and follow me. Of course.

I was in a daze. The officer said nothing for our three block ride. There were so many young people wandering the hospital parking lot. I could not fathom why.

I was led in and a nurse greeted me. I followed her. I just knew that whatever happened I would care for Raechel and nurse her back to health. I would put everything on hold to help her.

The nurse took me to a curtained area.

‘I am so sorry. Your daughter was in a motorcycle accident with a young man. Neither survived. She passed away at midnight.’ She opened the curtain and there was my beautiful girl. My girl who just moved back home. My girl who had just asked if I could believe I have a daughter who would turn 19 soon. My girl who had taught me so much about being a parent.

I am a mother, a wife and a woman who is rediscovering her artist within. I have lived many places and find that my home is always with me; my children and my husband are the heart of me. We are in North Dakota on a lovely farmstead. I teach preschool and am working towards my masters in special education. Visit my blog at http://carolsquilting.wordpress.com

June 29 — My Mother’s Gift

by Andrea Savee

WHEN I DIE by Beulah Irene Hagedorn

When I die
close my eyes.
I will have
gone away.
Keep the news
quiet.
My departure will be
unnoticed,
except to you
who hear me
and watch.

Be quiet yourselves.
Hold no public services.
Sing a song
you like,
and deal with loss
your way.
I will watch.

Let no one look
at my empty body.
Give it back
to the earth,
quickly, quietly
and move on.
God watches.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

1921 by Beulah Irene Hagedorn

No one
came
to the
chamber
where
I waited
inviting
me
to be born.

I slid
down
the corridor
and entered
this side
of life
in a small
square room,
out
of a
nineteen
year old girl
to a
twenty year old
boy
who held
me and
whispered
“welcome”.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

My mother wrote these poems in June of her seventy-ninth year. My mother, Beulah Irene Hagedorn, died June twenty third, two thousand four, six days before her eighty-third birthday. She left me all the words she’d ever written.

A flat rectangular dress-box bulges with hundreds of pieces of yellowing paper of various sizes. She began writing at age sixty following the end of her thirty year marriage. She wrote to save her life and her sanity, always in her usual elegant and steady script.

In the last decade of her life, she spent many months assembling a photo album in the large upstairs bonus room of her house. Pressed between the plastic sheets aren’t photos, but typed pages of poems, thoughts, remembrances filled with sorrow and grief, rantings and regrets. Eventually, reconciliations, revelations, and peace:

“I stayed and faced my demons where I had created them, where I found them–in the bedroom, at the dining table, in my children’s eyes, my ex-father-in-law’s groans, my ex-mother-in-law’s strained struggle to cope, and the dark accusing hours when my inner voices badgered me into hell and back. Finally, I walked through the night into the day repeating a litany of God’s promises of love and forgiveness, forgiving everyone in memory until I came to myself.”

I grew up hearing a fairy tale that turned out to be the story of my own beginning. She recorded this on one of her pages:

“My fourth child was conceived on August twenty seven, nineteen hundred and fifty nine because I knew from an unknown source deep within me that there was a child who would be a special gift to me.”

I grew up hearing my mother’s story from its beginning and living it with her to its end. In my hands now is her life in her own words de-constructed and re-constructed on the page. Words no one else has ever read. Until now.

Andrea Savee lives in Lakewood, California with her husband, Mike, and their cat, Chico. Retired from a career in business, Andrea enjoys traveling and writing. Her work has appeared in SCN journals and anthologies.

June 23 — A Distant Death

The day before my whole family was due to board a plane to Florida for my husband’s family reunion cruise, I got a call from my uncle Phil, who was a complete stranger to me.

My father left at my birth and we didn’t meet until I was fifteen.  I was apprised of his life by phone calls from his mother, as he went through six wives and became a Navy retiree.  However, Paul and I had not spoken personally for ages.  Grandma said he had a contract job in Saudi Arabia for the previous few years, and consequently I thought nothing of the lack of communication.

Ours was always a distant relationship.  He was a ghost who drifted in and out through the stories of others or the pangs I got when watching my husband being a fabulous father to our girls.

Paul showed no interest in me, and only once appeared in person when he mistakenly thought my mother was signing my custody away.  I realized even at fifteen, that though he was the sperm donor and a source of my genealogy, he was no father to me.  He never even expressed any interest in his granddaughters as they joined our lives, and I suppose that is when I finally truly wrote him off as a loss.

They say little girls grow up to marry their fathers, but I must say that was not my experience.  Instead, I had the freedom to make up the “wish list” for the man I would one day marry, and I think it worked out much better that way.  My father was the most emotionally remote person I have ever met, and I think I would have spent my life trying to please someone who could not be pleased.  It would have made me a far different person than I am today.

So, back to the call and that unusual day; Uncle Phil was calling to say that my father had committed suicide in prison.  I was shocked and actually thought for a moment that he was pulling some kind of cruel joke, but no, it was true.  Paul had not been in Saudi Arabia for two years…he had been in prison and met his end there that day.  I don’t know if this was the result of many years of mental illness or whether he was just tired of being alone.  Based on the crime that sent him to prison, I would assume the former, but I will never know.  It is mildly ironic that my work now is in mentoring programs for children of the incarcerated, for I never dreamed I would eventually be one.

He will never know me or what I have done in my life.  He will never know his beautiful, intelligent granddaughters who are achieving so much in theirs, and of course, they will never know him.

Not even in my stories, for I have none that would cause them to care.

I am a wife, mother, performer, businesswoman, philanthropist, genealogist and lover of life and a fan of the free will which God has given me to choose what I will do and just how happy I will be doing it!  http://kalipr.wordpress.com

April 24 — Shine

by Georgina Mavor

Like Geoffrey Rush in a scene from the movie ‘Shine’ I found my seven year old daughter jumping on her trampoline in the rain, naked except for knickers and a bright yellow raincoat. Her face alive, eyes gleaming, blonde hair ‘stringy’ and wild, she was relishing the first drops of rain after a very long, hot, endless, dry, summer. Living close to the ocean, any summer storm rain clouds tended to pass over the rooftops, dropping their precious loads when they hit the hills further inland. There is a silence in the air here, rain hasn’t broken that space since Winter last year.

I raise my seven year old daughter in an eclectic suburb originally built upon European migrants and the vegetables they toiled. The market gardens have been taken over by later generations of Vietnamese refugees and moved further afield. What remains is the architecture and lifestyle of (formerly) Yugoslavian, Greek and Italian peoples. Terrazza porches, fig trees, broad beans, the odd white lion or pillars at the front gate, the outdoor living areas around the back of homes, families often still living next door to each other, speaking their native language or its regional dialect.

In a rough attempt at self sustainability I converted my original English style front lawn into a vegetable garden. But with increasing shortages in water and time, I have replanted with native trees and plants, a small food source for a rich local birdlife. Brightly coloured red, blue, green and yellow cockatoos, pink and grey galahs, endangered black cockatoos, singing wattle birds, greeneyes, black and white magpies, their smaller cousins the mudlarks, the cheeky willy wag tails and the endlessly procreating doves. Of an evening, with the sun setting behind the Eucalyptus trees in front of my home, I sit and enjoy the cacophony of this birdlife in my raggle taggle garden while I write and reflect.

But my soul wrestles with this place. The colours are vivid, the light intense and the air filled with the oil of the Eucalypts. They are a pivotal counterbalance to the unsettling feeling that prevails here. Perth is the most isolated city in the world, but I don’t think this accounts for it’s aloofness in spirit. Those closest to some of the Aboriginal Elders say it is rich in Dreaming energy here. Our homes are built within 50,000 years of indigenous terrain.  Trees and huge stretches of native bush interspersed throughout the built environment, transmitting their energy to confuse and unsettle us.  Like my daughter on the trampoline flying high in the air, her face calling to the heavens, her feet searching for the earth below, I often experience the same, vacillating between one or the other. Maybe my home really is part of a built environment plonked in the middle of Dreamtime, maybe that accounts for its quirkiness. And maybe it’s just all the eucalyptus oil in the air sending us all a little bit dreamlike as we meander about our day.

Georgina Mavor is a Psychologist and Book Artist combining her love of words, writing, art and story with healing. Visit her blog at: http://www.georginamavor.blogspot.com

March 11 – That’s the Way It Was, Kendra

by Kendra Bonnett

Because March is Women’s History Month, I used my post on WomensMemoirs.com today to write about three women I have always admired. They are all at the top of my list of the women I most admire. But I omitted the name of the one woman who will forever hold the top spot. I’ve reserved her for special mention here. That would be Rosemary Buehrig Bonnett. My mother.

Moo, as our family and closest friends affectionately called her, was born in the small town of Tuscola in central Illinois in 1918. And as far as I can determine, she was different from practically everyone in her hometown…and I think they knew it too.

You see, my mother knew exactly what she wanted to do from the time she was very, very young.

Moo was an artist. It was her passion, shared only with the love she felt for her family. She won her first prize for drawing when she was just five. She passed math class by drawing architectural pictures for her teacher. She made posters for the local movie theater. Later, she often drew Hugh Chenoweth’s Polly Pippin comic strip when her friend and mentor was under the weather. And she originated the cute, round Disneyesque form for Kellog’s Snap, Crackle and Pop elves.

I think I know most of Moo’s stories because for as far back as I can remember, we talked. Dinner over, plates in the dishwasher, homework done, we’d sit and talk until it was time for me to go to bed. She told me stories of her childhood, the Great Depression, her years in Chicago first as an art student and later as a freelance commercial artist.

I sometimes wonder if my interest in storytelling and memoir has its beginning in the life story she was passing along to me in the course of our evening conversations.

I lost my mother in June 2001. I miss her and think about her every day. I think she’d smile to know the comfort I find in remembering her stories. She’d often emphasize the difference between her time and my own. It’s hard to imagine but people in her little town gossiped about the fact that my grandparents allowed Moo to go off alone to Chicago to art school. And when she was looking for her first job–at the height of the Great Depression–more than one company offered her a job for experience but no salary.

I can still hear her concluding one of her adventures…always emphasizing how different it was. “That’s the way it was, Kendra,” she’d say.

We owe a lot to the women who came before us, just as future generations will thank us some day. This Women’s History Month 2011, it’s good to stop and remember. I hope you’ll take time to think about the women you most admire…and read the rest of my list on WomensMemoirs.com. And find out how you can get two, free Rosie the Riveter Legacy Bandanas.

Kendra Bonnett is co-author of the award-winning memoir “Rosie’s Daughters” and one half of the team at WomensMemoirs.com–a resource for writing prompts, news, marketing/publishing advice, reviews and writing tips.

February 18 – Walking Into Love

by Susan J. Tweit

When I married the love of my life, Richard, he came as a package with Molly, his bright and often willful four-year-old daughter. Almost from the first, Molly and I began taking walks. We walked to the nearby park with its swings and slides; we walked downtown to the library and the food co-op; we walked to the university campus to meet her dad after work. Sometimes we skipped hand in hand; sometimes we walked fast to stay warm; sometimes we dawdled and counted sidewalk slabs.

We were unwittingly following in the footsteps of Henry David Thoreau, who extolled the delights of “sauntering,” exploring one’s home ground on foot. Although our walks were not, as Thoreau prescribed, completely without itinerary, the ambles Molly and I took honored the spirit of sauntering: our aim was simply to get outside together and see what we found.

We walked to experience the journey, not just to reach the destination. If arriving at a particular place had been our sole objective, we would have used the car.

Traveling on foot forced us to slow down, allowed us slip away from our too-harried daily routines, to listen to whatever came up and share what we encountered.

We traced ant trails, sniffed ground-hugging violet blossoms, picked up autumn leaves, craned our necks to decipher the shapes of passing clouds; we watched crows jockeying for position in nighttime roost trees and spotted fireflies signaling in blips of green light.

And we grew a relationship: joined by marriage rather than by birth, Molly and I had to negotiate disparate family cultures.

Walking gave us a territory of our own, a place we could start fresh away from the disputes that regularly rocked our blended household. Rambling with no agenda forced Molly and me to leave our baggage at home, allowing us to meet relatively unencumbered.

And a funny thing happened: When we strolled arm-in-arm, people commented on our “resemblance.”

Molly, with her father’s elegant height, high cheekbones, and dark hair would look down at me, half a head shorter with red-blond hair and freckles, and giggle uncontrollably. Clearly, they were seeing something we could not see.

Walking brought Molly and I together, stepmother to stepdaughter. Walking also re-connected us to the natural world, restoring a source of mental and spiritual renewal available to all who ramble.

What we didn’t expect, though, was that those thousands of steps would walk each one of us right into the other’s heart. The resemblance people see in the two of us is under the surface rather than an outward one: it’s the love we share.

Today is Molly’s 32nd birthday. Happy Birthday, honey!

(Excerpted from Walking Nature Home, A Life’s Journey, by Susan J. Tweit)

Susan J. Tweit is the award-winning author of twelve books (including her memoir, Walking Nature Home: A Life’s Journey, and Colorado Scenic Byways, winner of the Colorado Book Award), hundreds of magazine articles, radio commentaries and newspaper columns.

January 27 – Happy Birthday Mom

by Laurinda Wheeler

Each year, as my mom’s birthday approaches, I think of the young woman who gave birth to me. She was just 19 years old when she had me. I think of the details that I do know of her life at that time and I ponder the things she must’ve felt, dreamed of and longed for. I think of the things that may have brought her feelings of fear and doubt, maybe there were even feelings of regret. I think of the life that she has lived; where her journey has taken her so far and the strength that has kept her pushing forward and upward.

Sadly, I don’t have a specific memory of any birthday celebrations for my mom. We never had a party, and I don’t even remember having a cake for her on her special day.

I have a distant memory of going shopping in search of the perfect angora sweater; those were her favorite back then, but I don’t recall giving it to her.

I do have a vague recollection of, what I assume was, her getting ready to go out for a special birthday dinner with my dad, and I can see the red dress that my mom was wearing.

Although mom’s dress was red instead of blue, it was similar to the one in this picture; it had buttons from the neck down to the bottom of the skirt and a matching belt. I always believed it to be one of her special dresses.

I can almost still smell her perfume. Intimate. I remember that I felt hesitant to call it by name; I was afraid that it was a bad word for a young girl to use! I loved the feel of the rounded glass in my hands; in my adult mind’s eye, I would now use the word “sensual” to describe the feeling of that bottle in my young hands, as I softly and slowly ran my fingers over it. The image of the couple intertwined on the front of the bottle only added to that taboo feeling that consumed me when I was allowed to handle mom’s perfume.

I don’t know if that little glimpse of memory is even correctly connected to my mom’s birthday, but that is where the image has rested.

On this day, her day; I realize what an amazing woman and mother (and now grandma!) she has been and grown to become in the 32 years that I have known her. She continues to surprise and amaze me every day with all that she does. She not only chases her hopes and dreams, but she is well on her way to accomplishing them all; plus a whole lot more than I am sure she ever could have imagined!

Happy Birthday Mom!
Thank you for being you. I love you.

Laurinda has three beautiful step-children, and is currently staying at home with her beautiful two-year-old daughter! She has been inspired by her mom to get back to her writing. Laurinda blogs at Seasons of Life.