Monday, December 27, 2010

A POT OF GOLD

We spent Christmas with my Parents in Eastern Washington.  It was good and I am so glad we did.  My Father will be 88 on New Years Day.  He is very old and frail now...he has very little memory.  He has dementia and has gone way down hill the last month or so.  There are many times he will look at me, with my Husband sitting by my side, and ask me if I have a boyfriend.  I tell him "Yes!"  "In fact I married him and here he is...and we have two children who are your Grandsons!".  He gets a big smile on his face and says "oh...that's good."  

My Father was a beautiful writer.  He was a newspaper man.  Worked for a small town newspaper and wrote wonderful stories...mostly about his life during a simpler time.  I had been given the copies of the articles he had written and had intentions of putting them together for my siblings some day.  We moved and I had put extra special care into packing them.  The problem was I couldn't remember where.  The other day I told my Sister that I couldn't find them.  It took a lot of guts to tell her that.  She wasn't very happy with me and neither was I.  I went to bed that night feeling so restless about it.  But here's the crazy part...I had a dream about where I put them that night.  I looked where my dream told me to look and there they were!  Talk about an answer to prayer!!!  

My Sister had talked to a woman who works with the council on aging.  She had told my Sister how good it would be for Dad to see the articles he wrote again.  So, with articles in hand I brought them to him for Christmas.  He didn't remember that he had ever written for a news paper.  But after he started reading the articles he started remembering the things he wrote about.


  Finding those articles was like finding a pot of gold.  I can't tell you what it meant to me to see my Dad have a little glimmer of the times he had written about come back to him.  I was so thankful.  On our way home we took the ferry back to the island and were greeted with a rainbow shining on the tip of the island.  I was reminded of the pot of gold...I will cherish this Christmas...most likely the last I will have with my Dad but one I will always treasure.

Thursday, December 16, 2010

Glimpses of Christmas

The tree is up and very sparkly it is...some glimpses into my favorite images from the tree.
 This is the ornament I picked out when I was five.  It's ANCIENT!!! and full of memories.  My Mom...sweet dear woman...would give us a new ornament every year.  Sometimes we would get to pick out our own.  I still remember going to Valbourgs gift shop with Mom and getting to pick out an ornament for my collection.  I thought this red plastic star was the most BEAUTIFUL of all.  The way it glows and reflects the light had me mesmerized.  I have treasured it every year since.  More the memory than the ornament...but it's the ornament that holds the memory for me...it reminds me of a sweet time I shared with my Mom.  Now we carry on the tradition and buy or make our boys ornaments every year that they will some day have for their own Christmas tree.

this one... and

this one...

and this one too.


I just love everything that sparkles at Christmas time.  The other night I was looking at a pillow my sweet Sister Larinda made for us last year...it sparkles too!

Isn't it beautiful!!!  Thank you sweet Sister!  I just love your amazing handiwork!

To top off my sparkly post, here is a picture of something we did the other night. Our family went to a really fun, free event on the island...the Christmas Ships.  I have always wanted to see them but haven't until now...they are very sparkly too!

The boat has professional singers on it and when the come into the Harbor they just stop for about 20 minutes and sing to the crowd on the shore.  I cried...I always cry at things like this.  You should see me at the 4th of July parade.  There's just something about nostalgia that gets me every time.

I hope you're having a sparkly Christmas...full of wonderful, memory making times.

Much love,

Meagan

p.s.  I also cried when Frosty the Snowman melted...Karen and I had a good cry together! :)