Spending time with family is one of the great joys in life. We can stay close through time and distance.

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

A family doesn’t need to be perfect. It just needs to be united. Unknown

Life surrounded by family is a joy. At Easter dinner two places were empty, one was sick and one was working, but our newest member was with us. Babies are so much work and so much fun, and as grandma, I get the fun but not the work.

What a beautiful time to be born with April flowers poking their heads out of the ground. In places where there is still snow – it is the last of it. The other day I saw seeds for sale and I purchased a bunch. My husband asked, where are you planting those. Over the years many of my flowers have died out as trees and shrubs have grown larger.

My garden has been neglected especially in the last few years. If I want a beautiful garden I have to put the work in. A garden is a metaphor for life. I’ve let weeds take over where flowers used to be. I need to find new flowers that will flourish with my shrubs and trees. I should have planted spring bulbs last fall, but I didn’t.

One of the things I want to do this year is to find more balance in my life. I was working very hard on writing and it is necessary to put the work in to accomplish something. But, we also have to find balance in our lives and now I need to find time for a fuller richer life as a grandma.

I expect now I’m getting into the groove as a writer that it will be part of my life for however long I have on this earth. Art and writing are two pastimes I enjoy and enrich my life. Life is what we make it, and making time for all the facets of our life is important. It is not good to focus too much on one part of our life to the detriment of other equally important parts.

What greater blessing to give thanks for at a family gathering than the family and the gathering.  Robert Breault

Yesterday it would have been so easy to say. I don’t have time to make Easter dinner this year. With all we have going on no one would have questioned that decision. We would have missed out on a lovely evening we shared in the glow of getting together with family we haven’t spent time with for a while and introducing them to the newest member of the family.  It is the last dinner we’ll have with everyone before my son’s wedding.

My son said to me as we cleaned up. “Thanks, Mom, for doing the work to make this happen.” He is marrying into a family that celebrates big and often. As I look back over our life I wonder if we celebrated enough. My friend sent me a picture of her one-year-old grandson with his birthday cake all over his face. She is a first-time grandma and so am I.

Families are fragile things. Our circle can be broken easily and like Humpty dumpty can be hard to put back together again. We watch famous families disintegrate before our eyes, sometimes we watch our own disintegrate and don’t know how to fix things.

Families aren’t perfect, they are always comprised of imperfect people thrown together, stirred and shaken by the winds of fate. We don’t know how our lives will unfold, “Will we be rich, will we be happy, Que sera, sera? The future’s not ours to see. Whatever will be, will be, Que sera, sera.”

What we can do, is gather our loved ones around us when we get the chance. We can make phone calls and stay in touch. We can make the best of what we have. If we do these things then, whatever happens, we will know we did the best with what we had, and live a life of few regrets.

Families are like branches on a tree. We grow in different directions. Yet our roots remain as one. Unknown

If you want to bring happiness to the world, go home and love your family. Mother Teresa

You can kiss your family and friends goodbye and put miles between you, but at the same time you carry them in your heart, your mind, your stomach because you do not just live in the world but a world lives in you. Frederick Buechner

Thank you for reading this post. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you will come back and read some more. Have a blessed day filled with gratitude, joy, and love.

To subscribe, comment, see archives or categories of posts click on the picture and scroll to the end.

Thank you to everyone that reads my books. A special thank you to those who leave a review on Amazon and Goodreads. If you click on the Amazon link and purchase an item I receive a small percentage of the sale through the Amazon affiliate program.