HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME

It is so cold tonight and we are expecting some snow and freezing rain. I hope if it is going to do anything it will do it before I have to go to work in the morning. Sixty six years ago today, I was all snug and cozy inside the my mother's womb. Warm, comfortable and oblivious to anything going on in the outside world. Well that changed fast enough on Feb 4Th. I was born at the old hospital in town and was welcomed into the world by my mother, daddy and a brother just 2 years older. Mother was in the hospital for two weeks and had to be brought home in an ambulance. Not because she was sick, but because daddy was in the military and that was the rules at the time. I'm told that I was a good baby and was really shy when I was little. I was one of those kids that would bury my face in mother's skirt if anyone tried to talk to me. I would spend hours digging dirt. All I needed to keep me entertained was a pan and a spoon.

My brother and I were close in age and had a close friendship growing up. When I was seven I had another brother, and another brother when I was twelve and a sister when I was 15. When they were born I became a second mother and could change a diaper with the best of them.

Life in our house was always loud and always lots of friends coming and going. There were usually two or three extra kids there on any given weekend. My brother Bruce was in a rock-n-roll band and they would practice in the basement and I would have my friends over to listen to music and flirt with the boys in the band (who thought we were a bunch of teenie bopper pest.)

I learned that life was not always kind when I was 16 and my youngest brother died at the age of four. This had a huge impact on our whole family. Mother was never the same after that. She became real reclusive and after 50 years she still lives her life inside the four walls of her home. Who's to say what anyone would do if they lost a child.

I met John when I was 20 and he was 21. We only knew each other for three months when we got married. We just kind of knew from the first date that we were meant for each other. That was 45 years ago so I guess we must have been destined to be together. For the last 45 five years we have raised five children. They are all grown and have lives and families of their own. So far we have had no divorces, no serious problems with our kids and we continue to keep our fingers crossed as we move into another era with grand kids hitting their teen years. God has blessed us more than we can even imagine.

The years has given me a handful of really great friends and a boatload of people that has brought joy to my life. John and I were talking the other night and decided that we have had a wonderful life, we would not change a thing, but we wouldn't go back and live it over. It would be too hard to relive all the losses, disappointments and mistakes that come with life. I prefer to take the memories of all the good times and carry them into the future.

Sixty six years ago I was feeling the urge to enter this adventure called life. Sixty six years later I am still living the adventure.