Today is my birthday.
It is my 46th
birthday as a daughter.
It is my 46th
birthday as a sister.
It is my 21
st
birthday as a stepmother.
It is my 18th
birthday as a mother.
It is my 5th
birthday as a grandparentless granddaughter.
It is my 3rd
birthday as a widow.
I have a college
degree in Elementary Education (K-6).
I have a diploma in
Child Day Care.
I have 1 year of
college as a Counseling major
and some training and
practicums in that field.
I started working at
age 14 (which required getting working
papers and obtaining a social security number since that was the first time it
was ever needed).
I have worked and
earned income as
a clerk in a
pharmacy;
a full-time summer
and holiday nanny;
a church janitor at the church where my father was pastor;
a day care worker in
3 different day cares;
a public school Teacher
Assistant in a Behaviorally Emotionally Handicapped classroom;
a physical therapy
assistant;
a secretary at a
counseling center and then as the office manager at the same center;
a Teacher Assistant
to an English professor;
an Elementary School
teacher in public school;
an owner and operator
of a state licensed home day care after having Anna - providing care for 6
children under the age of 1 (2 children
alternated days thus filling 1 spot);
a transcriptionist
for a poetry company;
and I last earned a
paycheck as a part-time secretary for the church where my late husband was then
the pastor.
All of which has
given me a vast variety of earned experiences and knowledge.
I have worked and
earned no income as
a preacher’s
daughter;
a sister, cousin, niece,
aunt, and friend;
a person who built my own hutch when I wanted one for my new dishes;
a wife to my late
husband;
the accounts payable
and receivable department for our household (although
the payable part was much more active than the receivable part)
a mother and a
stepmother;
(and even though my children were and are terrific children and I would
not change a thing about any of them and I love them all to the moon and back
and CHERISH every moment I had with each of them)…
…a pregnant woman who
had miserable pregnancies and threw up so much throughout the pregnancies that
it’s still hard to believe I got that way ON PURPOSE 3 times
(but still so thankful to God that I was able to get that way to begin
with);
a mother, 3 times, to
breastfed infants in cloth diapers, with the 2nd one being born 6
weeks before my Crystol graduated high school and the last one being born when
Crystol was in college and was 20 years old and that last one, well –
he cried all of the
time (and yes, that does deserve its own
line);
a mother of teenagers
(and yes, that does deserve its own
line);
a mother of a college
aged adult daughter (and yes, that does
deserve its own line);
a preacher’s wife;
a partner to my late
husband during his 17 years of ministry;
a supporter,
emotionally and financially, to my late husband as he earned his Master of
Divinity degree from Duke
Divinity School;
a full-time typist, secretary, and all things office related to my late preacher husband;
a supporter to my
late husband throughout his years of becoming an ordained elder in the United Methodist
Church;
a caretaker for and
to my late husband during his medical needs;
as a home school
teacher to Anna, Wesley, and Luke since each of them started Kindergarten (keeping 3 different curriculums going
simultaneously with 1 child struggling AND OVERCOMING dyslexia and possibly a
slight case of dysgraphia though that part was never diagnosed);
an excellent packer
and mover as I’ve lived in 11 different towns and was in charge of my parents’
last 3 moves as well and I would have to call Crystol to even remember how many
times I helped move her during her college years;
a counselor and
encourager to many who asked;
a retirement planner
for my parents when my dad could no longer drive and had to retire in his 50th
year of ministry and my mom retired in her 48th year of teaching
piano;
a rehabilitation
center for my parents after hospital stays and broken bones;
a diabetic specialist
for my VERY brittle diabetic dad;
a nutrition
specialist for my dad for the reason just stated;
an insurance
specialist for my late husband’s and my parents’ and my children’s medical
needs;
the person who takes
my parents to their doctor appointments and who knows every “ologist” (cardiologist, etc.) in the 60 mile
radius of their home and the person who still remembers all of the doctors I
used to take them to at the previous places they lived;
the accounts payable
and receivable department for my parents’ household;
a home health care
nurse for my parents;
a life coach for my
parents as they went from active employment to retired to needed daily care to
needed many times a day care;
a pharmacy technician
for my parents’ medications (learning
much more about the over 30 daily medications they take than I ever thought I’d
know);
a person who learned
a lot as we moved a 70 year old house across the road and set up a “new”
homestead for retirement (that I ended up
living in way too early when Rob died) and is slowly updating and
remodeling parts of it;
a person who knows
about all things funeral related – from how to write my 52 year old husband’s
obituary to buying a casket to planning the service itself;
a mom who became a grief
counselor for my children as they dealt with and are still dealing with the
death of their father;
a mom who had to help
her children forge new identities for themselves as every single thing about
their lives changed with the death of their father, from where they lived to
where they went to church to how their daily lives would run;
an expert on my own
grief as I’ve mourned my late husband and learned to go on living without him (because one thing I have definitely learned
is that no one person ever grieves the same as another so therefore, I am the
only one who knows how I’ve felt and grieved and that, unfortunately, makes me
an expert on my own);
a person who gets up
every day and continues to move forward even though there are still days I
would rather pull up the covers and not face the reality of my world;
an ONLY parent to my
fatherless children;
a happy and blessed observer
and admirer as my children grow and develop in the way that they are – seeing
their father’s and my influences shining through as they become the persons I
feel God intended them to be;
and lastly, but
really first and most importantly,
I am a follower of
Christ –
no more and no less
than a servant of His teachings
as I’ve walked my
path on this earth.
All of which has
given me a vast variety of earned experiences and knowledge.
However, the main thing
that I’ve learned
in my 46 years of
being on this earth and through all of the above is that
I have only begun to
scratch the surface
of all there is to
know and to feel.
But one thing I have always known is that for as long as my
memory has been recording,
I have always strived to live by the following rule:
I hope everyone that
I have ever come in contact with over my 46 years has been able to tell that
this was how I have lived and will continue to live “for as long as ever I can.”
The really great
thing about this rule for me though, is that I was an adult before I knew that
it was “John Wesley’s rule.”
It’s just what I
learned at home. And that was the best gift ever.
P.S. My family gave me a birthday party last night at my parents’
home. We had a great time and I will try
to post about that later on in the week.
P.S.S. It’s too late to
proofread this so I hope it all makes sense.
