Bittersweet!

Bittersweet!
June is always a month of activity! It is usually the first month of summer vacation for many school aged children, mine included. For many young couples in love it is often the start or the beginning of their new lives together as they have planned their June weddings. For Dad’s it is a time to be recognized. Yet for others it means that the year is half over already and they began planning for the fast approaching holidays.  Bittersweet is the word I have for my June months!
The month of June is one of my sweetest months because I have had the most wonderful miracles to happen to me. I gave birth to my  son after longing for and praying for children for twenty years! Yes, my husband and I were married twenty years before we conceived and had our first-born son. June was the most precious month as his birthday is June 5th ! As we celebrate my son’s birthday it is such a sweet time and remembrance that God blessed me with my heart’s desire. But wait, God wasn’t finished yet, four years later, He blessed us again as on June 12th, I found out that I was pregnant with another miracle baby! So as you can see, June is especially sweet to me because I have precious miracles to celebrate!
Proverbs 13:22 (KJV) A good man leaveth an inheritance to his children’s children: and the wealth of the sinner is laid up for the just.
Okay, to the bitter part of my June months. Unfortunately both of my parents passed away in June. My Dad passed June 22, 1997 and my Mom on June 13, 2008. My heart becomes heavy when I think of not having them with me on this side of Heaven. I long for my “old home place” to go back to and to see them, as my parents lived in Kentucky and I in Georgia. We talked on the telephone long distance every week without fail. We made Kentucky our vacation place at least twice a year, once in the summer and then at Christmas. We loved to go to Kentucky where we spent such wonderful times at “Home” with my parents. My parent’s loved the outdoors, so in the summer time we usually took fishing trips and Dad usually always planned a huge BBQ to bring the whole family together, it was wonderful. Dad was the head of our family that brought us all together. At Christmas time, everyone met at my parent’s house to visit, open gifts and to partake of the best Christmas meal you could have as my Mom was an awesome cook! I can still hear my little 128 pound Daddy with a Santa hat on yelling “HO.. HO.. HO” as he walked through the house where we were all gathered in. Those were the good ole days that I carry with me.
Unfortunately, I can’t live in the good ole days, so I try to live after my parent’s example. I want to be like my Dad. He was a giver. He sowed into lives all the time. He was always grinning and was a prankster. He loved to tell stories, which Is where I am sure that I get my storytelling ability for my books. He will never die as I see so many of his character traits like a thread running through each family member. My Mom was creative. She loved to sew clothing, design quilts, crochet, and cook wonderful meals without recipes. She also had a green thumb and could grow anything. When she would become tickled we call her “Precious Pup” which was a cartoon character that was on television when I was a child. She would try to do the deep belly laugh out loud but instead all that would come out was this funny noise as she laughed until tears rolled from her eyes. I smile just thinking about them. I thank God that I inherited wonderful genes from my parents. Although they were not rich by the world’s standards they possessed treasures within that money could never buy. I miss them so much, but I can still see them living on in my family as they have deposited little bits of themselves in each of us.
So I used the word bittersweet as this is what real life is all about. Life is good times and bad all rolled up into one life. How we let it affect us is what counts. I choose to glean from everything that happens whether good or bad. Because of my faith in God, I know that I will see my parents again, so I choose to guard the treasure that they deposited in me and use it to make them proud and for God’s Glory. My children are living examples to God’s goodness to me. The fact that I am here writing this blog to whoever may choose to read it, is a testament as to how God’s grace has been my enabler through the sorrow and pain of loss. The most important thought that I want to leave is that every day we deposit into other lives. I, like my parents, want to have deposited treasure that my children and others that I’ve touched can use to for their generation and even the next. M hope is that when I am gone, that I am remembered with a smile!

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