MY 12TH CHRISTMAS

Recently by pure chance or more likely by the LORD'S plan I ran into a cousin that I had not seen since he was an infant born prematurely. My own children were in their early and pre-teen aged years. They did not expect this tiny one to pull through and they had him in the Anarbour MI University Hospital NICU. I took my mom and we took off to go lend our support and prayers for the infant, my second cousin. The moment they took me into the NICU and I got a look at the little fella, I couldn't tell where the medical equipment stopped and the baby began. As a result of my experience in Anarbour, when my own great grandson was born this past February 10 weeks too early, I was too terrified to go up and see him although I loved him so greatly. I was scared.
The reason I never saw him after that one time is that his grandma, my aunt was unstable mentally and ended up disowning my mother, her only sister and anyone that had any attachment to Mom. Also, my aunt essentially ran David's mom off a few years later along with David and his baby brother, whom I have never seen nor do I even know his name. At any rate, since re-connecting with David he has asked me to be his eyes into the side of the family he was never allowed to meet.
This is a great responsibility for me. I loved my aunt greatly, but did not like the way she treated Mom. I have decided that telling him the truth about the situation, yet at the same time making sure that he is aware that I loved his grandma dearly and still do. A couple of days after being asked to tell him about the family and then being asked about possibly helping him make contact with others, I wrote him my first email. In that first email I began by letting him know that we as individuals and as a part of our family, are only human, with human problems and that a lot of what I wanted to pass on were good and happy memories, but there would be some unhappy ones as well. I told him also that re-living these memories would most likely bring on the tears on my part. And the telling of some of our story has brought tears. Not all have been tears of sadness or regret, but tears for the family that he will never have the opportunity of knowing as I knew them. But it was nice being able to tell my aunt's grandson of Friday nights so long ago when she lived back at home with my grandparents because my uncle had been sent to Korea with the Army. Some of those Friday nights so long long ago I would spend the night with her and we would drink coke (as much as I wanted) and eat everything in sight while watching old Boriss Karlov and Bella Legosie movies (me watching from behind Granddad's huge chair). LOL Then when we'd go to bed we'd lay there in the dark playing Bee Bee Bumble Bee I See Something You Don't See, and I Spy With My Little Eye. When we'd get tired of those, usually just before I would fall asleep, we would draw pictures on each other's backs and try to guess what the picture was of. These memories brought the tears in floods for me. Number 1 because they were times I would never get to have again and Number 2 all that time that was lost to us as a family before my aunt passed away.
I told cousin David that more than likely he would get the good childhood memories from me because those are the ones that matter the most to me and in life. I told him the important things in our lives are first, our Love of GOD, second,our love of others and third, our love of self. It is my own personal opinion that the most important emotion in the world is Love. Love sometimes hurts us, but in general it is the most beautiful gift the LORD ever gave us and the same for us to give to others.
One day I hope to get to meet cousin David and I also pray that one day I will get to see his dad at least once before the LORD calls me home. There is only one drawback to the remembering and the telling of my stories, and that is they are in days long gone and all that is now left are memories because I am the only one left to remember.
In the words of David's late cousin and mine, Monica: "Live, Love, Do Good". I have lived to my 63rd birthday (I didn't expect to) and at 63 I feel very old, although my therapist keeps telling me she's only a few weeks younger than me and SHE is CERTAINLY NOT OLD. I believe she is delusional and she believes I have totally lost my mind! At least my age has not dampened my sense of humor.
May GOD Bless all with memories such as mine, extremely happy.