Tomorrow is Independence Day here in the U.S.. This means fireworks, barbecues, family gatherings, and food.
As I’m lucky enough to live close to a beach that hosts a public fireworks display, this also means street closures, snarled traffic, drunks letting off fireworks late into the night, trash strewn all over the beach, the park, and my front lawn, and no parking within a four-block radius of my house for the entire four-day weekend.
There’s no wonder we usual get out of town!
It’s Whiny Wednesday. What’s on your mind this week?
Oh, and Happy Independence Day, too!
My sister and her husband are celebrating their wedding anniversary this week. For their anniversary gift all four of their kids (all in their 30’s) got together and made a king sized quilt for them. Every patchwork square contained something special and personal, such as photos of the kids with their spouses, and of course, the grandbabies.
The grandkids drew pictures and wrote letters in their pre-school handwriting, and these all went into the patchwork squares. The family crest was in the middle. More pictures, letters, family memories, baby handprints, etc… surrounded the crest. It was lovely and it took weeks to make. I’m happy for my sister, in that she has children and grandchildren to lavish her with love and affection and personal gifts such as these. My niece posted a video on Facebook for us all to see of them opening their gift (they’re out of state). And … that’s when I started crying.
I know I’ll never have children and grandchildren, but this type of event really hits that fact home even more. It reminded me that nobody will ever give me a quilt like that, filled with memories of raising children and grandchildren. It made me feel very empty and sad, and I’ve gone off Facebook for the long weekend until all of the ooohing and aaahing is over.
Mary, I could feel your/our tears starting as I read this. Yes – like you, this type of event can be tough. Hugs.
Mary, HUGE HUGS for you…
Mary, I am sorry to hear about that and hope you feel better.
We are new to being CNBC so right now we are doing things together instead of separately such as camping, learning to scuba dive, etc. I am not sure how to start re-inviting people into my life. I want to have more people in our life.
I do wonder though about the future without children or grandchildren. Am I going to die in a hermetically sealed apmt with my Japanese robot pet? Will anyone find me? Sigh…
My parents have been visiting and I suggested going to see a somewhat distant cousin who has been living in a nursing home for 6 months now. So we went. We were told she might not recognize us. She didn’t remember me, but she remembered my parents right away, and kept asking my dad to come back and visit her. Her cognitive skills are certainly limited but she got all animated with us being there. There are not many residents in the home (it’s in a house in a residential neighborhood), only 6 that I saw. They are well taken care of. Fed well by a kind staff that even gives them pedicures and manicures. The place is clean. But the residents are now almost non-verbal. I mean, our relative opened up and talked to us (on limited topics), but another woman who my mother had seen the last time she visited a few months back, had lost a lot of weight and was not the person she had been just a few months earlier; far less animated. I am not scared of death. But I do worry about my life, if I grow old enough where I have no urgent medical problems, but I can no longer rely on myself. I know that these days many children cannot care for their parents because they live away or are too busy with work and their own families, but I feel strongly that having family contact, warmth, interaction, and just people to talk to makes all the difference. This relative never had children, but one nephew visits frequently and one niece comes by every Sunday. And of course she was lucid enough to ask me if I had children, and when I said “no”, she just said, “none?” And then there was a moment of silence before I switched subjects.
Someone I only really know as a facebook friend was whining just now on facebook: She lives in a village in the countryside where generally everybody is friendly. Except this one person who forbids the children to pass on the street in front of her house. She has the right to do so, she owns that part of the street. Of course my FB acquaintance who has 2 kids is now critizing that.
I am confused because on the one hand of course that neighbour is petty minded and its ridiculous. On the other hand I so want to comment to this mother that there is absolutely no duty to like children and something like that is not more offensive wether it is about children or adults and so on…. *sigh*