Life Review

Saw today an advertisement …”Life is better with a plan.” Really, I thought I would just slide right through life, pass go and collect my 200 dollars. But as we all know life doesn’t work that way. Life has a way of creeping up on you 20 years post graduation from high school and backhanding you like a thief who stole something. You thought you got the beat down of a lifetime when you were little and you decided to run in the street with a car coming and your momma saw you… No life is much more of a disciplinarian then your momma could ever be.


As I reflect on another year pass, with the Pandora radio playing songs that stir memories, I reflect on the heartaches, past loves, high school, the day I got married, the birth of my children, and my family. I wonder what this life is really about. What do we take with us when we pass on to our next big adventure? I hope when I leave this life that I take it all. That I take for my journey all the heartache, joy, laughter, and love that this life gave me, and hopefully will continue to give me, God willing.

As I watch my oldest child’s apprehension of graduation and what life will have to offer her, I think back 20 years. What has life taught me, what have I gained with the experiences that I have come to know…


• That a mother's love in like none other. That I can now appreciate the term ‘You wear your heart on your sleeve when you have a child.” I thank God everyday for having the love of a mother given to me whom I know would walk through hell and back just to guarantee my safety.

• That the loss of my dear dog Nikki, would prepare me for bigger losses in my lifetime.

• That the first boy I ever was “in like with” lived just doors from my grandmother’s house. That boy taught me what butterflies felt like in the pit of my stomach as I watched this boy walk up to my grandmother porch to ask my cousin Mike if he can come out and play.

• That I hate Bobby Brown ‘s music because of the first boyfriend I ever had that broke my heart. Damn Tender Roni song….

• That the first date I ever went on was the best 16th birthday present I could have ever gotten, because it was my first taste of freedom.

• That walking across the stage at Whiting auditorium was a moment I will never forget. Hearing Becky Zaroo’s name called and realizing the class of “91” is now part of my past, and that never again in my lifetime will I hear my name called next to Jeff Christina during roll call. Another milestone was met.

• That having family and friends make life so much richer, and that the song “Lean on me” can almost always bring me to tears.

• That in Nov of 1991 my life track would make a correction when I joined the church. At that point, I found myself starring into the mirror at 18 and realizing that I was a daughter of God, and that I was loved by someone bigger then me.

• That less then 2 years later someone would come into my life that would love me like no other. A young man that cherished me for my strengths and still loved me despite my faults. A man that would pledge to love me for an eternity.

• That nothing compares to holding your baby for the first time and at that moment realizing life is bigger then you give it credit for. That there is purpose in all this madness and a love that can’t be defined.

• That losing a business and experiencing financial hardships wasn’t the most detrimental catastrophic experience of my lifetime.

• That reinventing you after so many years is what life is about. That wearing a number 3 on my graduation cap from nursing school was more about recognizing the strong women that went before me in nursing, my mother and grandmother….

• That this spring I will watch as my husband collects his Master's for Marriage, Family Therapy. That although this has been quite the challenge that we didn’t expect I couldn’t be more proud of him.

I have recognized as we go through this life and collect our experiences, that with each person, each moment,  each emotion,  these very things, make the blocks, and provide the thread in our quilts, which will give us comfort during our darkest hour and joy during our brightest days. This quilt of time and memories supply us with the protection we sometimes need from what we call life.

As I think back for over this past year with the few remaining weeks of 2011 that we have left. I hope that I can take into 2012 a new sense of purpose, of putting the past where it should be, and making new blocks for the comfort I will need in the coming years as I enjoy life for what it was meant to be…and that is well lived.