The Times of My Life

Oh, I must write in blue...it is alive...youthful...vibrant...the colors of my grandson's high school football jersey...and the colors of mine...
I am a Time Traveler...I am having the Times of My Life!

I am a grandma living in a mother's world..I lived there as a young woman with my 2 precious children...I did it all as best I could..with as much as I knew and as much as I had experienced as a child...I lived in that time somewhat imperfectly...I think.

Today I have been given a GIFT of Time..I am raising my grandson.. I have always been there for him..but then he came to live with me permanently, as a Junior in High School, at last freed from a chaotic and stark childhood world with his other parent...she delivered him finally to me and his father..and with circumstances affecting my son, I said, Yes, it is Time, HIS Time ...and I will do my best for him..he deserves it!

He moved in, grateful to even have a bed and new shoes..and enrolled in our local HS..he only only ever wanted to play football..and miraculously, the boy with no experience, only a wish..came home with a #63 Football Jersey...Oh how wonderful for him...how proud for him I was...and how little I knew where the Journey of "YES" would take, me..and him...back in Time, forward in Time? God knows...I told him he was now in Grandma's Bootcamp..and we'd figure it out together...and we have ...

Last night was the final Senior Football Game for him...I have been to them all...garbed in his jerseys. cheering my heart out for his team..with all the Moms and Dads, and my son (Senior Parents..and grandma)...
I cannot begin to describe what JOY I have found..I have learned to toilet paper cheerleader homes, accept toilet paper all over mine...survive daily "sports talks" and raced for the papers to read about all the local team scores...

I have plunged backwards in Time to my own High School Days (Class of 63..get it? his Jersey #) and forwards in Time, standing with my son on senior parents night as my grandson in full football uniform presented me with roses..holding my hand as a beautiful young man, just the way he did as a trusting and precious little boy..

I'm not done yet..and hardly dare to dream past today as far as what my and his life will hold...we'll take our Time..and do it together, with God, and oh so much gratitude.......

Time Was...

There was a time in my life when I believed in the words of others...I owned them..they were written in my heart, unquestioned. Of course, the golden and precious words, I Love You...sacred words, never to be confused with I Like You..never to be misrepresented as true, when not ....Mothers say I love you...and all that they do after that is said must be part of the loving...lovers say those words..and sometimes it gets confusing because it doesn't feel like love...I was told to never say I love you unless I meant it..and don't waste it on foods, books, clothes..mundane things...Love, and saying it was, well, special.

Friends say loving things too..time was when I believed in the specialness of friends...real friends...like a trust or love thing...special. And children..family...those were all in that special words, Hallmarky category..sacred....and Time Was...a LONG Time it Was..that it was all I knew, all I believed in (besides God and all that)

Well, one day, or week or year, I began to see some flaws..little ones, then huge ones...words..yes WORDS...didn't count...for anything! Nothing!! I love you could be said, but the actions of the sayer..felt to me like I Hate you or I love Me...the words of my life and the speakers in it..didn't match...with their actions..lots and lots of the words were wrong...I started to think..don't say those words to me...just show me...see how the folks are acting with NO words...Time Was..well, Time Was teaching me something..showing me something..Time Was helping me grow up and become real, with real meanings and real people...not just words, not just labels...there was a time, when I was a child, when I was blind...but now I see.