What is it worth?

We seem to measure everything by it's worth...is it valuable?  Does it serve a purpose?  How much does it cost?  But some of the most important things can not have a price tag attached to them.  I teach six year olds.  Every morning my day starts with hugs.  Those hugs do not have a price tag on them, but their value is incredible.  There are days I could crawl back into bed and cover my head, but those hugs make it better.  Then there are those "AW, HA"  moments!  That moment in time when it all clicks for that child.  If you are a lucky teacher, those moments happen everyday.  When a child understands a concept for the first time and they look at you with total understand, that is the most incredible moment in teaching.

Recently I discovered some hidden pictures of my family.  These pictures are of a generation that is no longer with us.  While to some those pictures are worthless, to me they tell the story of my family.  They are invaluable to me.  I hope that I teach my children to respect their history and that these pictures will someday mean something to them.  And they don't ask "How much is it worth?"

Proud Mommy

Tonight my children exhibited their lambs at our county livestock shows.  Our county is one of the most competitive in the state...so winning it is a big deal.  This year my two darling children did not just win it, but they dominated it.  My daughter is nine years old, so this is the first year she has been allowed to participate at the county show.  She is an official 4-Her.  She walked into the ring determined to win.  She had Reserve Breed Champion Southdown and Reserve Breed Champion Suffolk...she shined in the ring.  Then her big brother (who is a senior) decided to go out with a bang.  He had Breed Champion Shrop and Breed Champion Cross...then he did something that I have not seen in the eleven years my husband has been teaching in this county happen in the sheep barn and only once in the swine barn...he won Grand and Reserve Grand Champion Lamb.  It was so exciting watching his face light up.  This was the third year in a row that he has won Grand Champion.  He was so excited.  He works so hard, so it was the reward for all of his, his sister's, and his father's hard work.  They work so well as a team and tonight they won as a team.  Then to make my day even more perfect, a lady that I don't really know stopped me as I was walking through the barn.  She wanted to tell me that I had polite, well-behaved children that were a joy to be around.  She informed me that I should be proud of them...I told her I was.  And I am!  I am very blessed to have all three of them in my life!

My Son--My Hero

When I started this blog I was excited to see where it led me.  In May, our lives took a drastic turn.  My children and I rode out a tornado in the master bedroom closet.  Our house had major damage that took us all summer to repair.  But the worst was the security that storm took from our lives.  My children are anxious when they see dark rain clouds, I watch the weather with a heavy heart, and my husband still has guilt about being in Illinois when it hit and not with us.  But we have discovered how much we mean to each other.  I learned about the strong, protective son I raised as I watched him throw his body across his little sister to protect her from the falling ceiling. 

 

On the night of the storm I watched my 17 year old turn into the man I knew he would someday be.  He took charge that night.  After he helped rescued nine trapped neighbors from a storm cellar, he began to work on cleaning our home.  He worked for days removing trees, trash, and debris from our home.  He became my hero in so many ways.  I had always been proud of him, but now I was proud of the man he is becoming.  Until his father returned home, he was the man of the house.  He learned skills and applied skills his father had taught him, but he had never used.  I watched him care for and assist our older neighbors as they worked to clean their yards and homes.  He willing volunteered to help them.  He didn’t complain, he just did what needed to be done.  My son is my hero.

May 24th Tornado

It was a beautiful Oklahoma day.  It was the first day of summer vacation.  We were enjoying our freedom from school and just being lazy.  The television was on satellite channel.  My husband was in Chicago on a business trip.  The phone started ringing.  My husband was getting phone calls and texts from friends that were worried about us.  Before we knew what was happening, sirens were going off and the police were going door-to-door telling people to go below ground and to take cover.  We don't have a cellar, so I placed the kids in the master bedroom closet with pillows and quilts.  Within 15 minutes the electricity was off, and the sky darkened.  Then a whistling sound started.  My 17 year old son threw himself over my 8 year old daughter.  She had on her bicycle helmet and rain boots.  I threw myself onto my son.  As we were huddled together in a pile, we heard the roof lifting off the house and dropping back down.  You could hear the trees hitting the house and the shingles flying off.  The roof sounded like a deck of cards being shuffled.  The wind sounded like a train whistle.  As the wind died down, the limbs continued to hit the house.  After ten or fifteen minutes of deadly silence, I slowly opened the door and crawled out of the closet.  I made my way across the floor to the closest window.

As I opened the blinds, I was unprepared for what I would see.  We live on an acreage that is covered with trees.  That is the only reason we were interesting in purchasing it was because it made us feel like we had our own little farm.  Trees were uprooted, missing tops, broken in half, and generally destroyed.  As my teenager and I left my daughter and went outside to inspect the damage, we were met with total destruction.  My roof was missing in places.  Trees that were four feet around were pulled out of the ground and laying on the fence.  A two inch drilling pipe fence was bent into "v's" in five places.  My chainlink fence was bent at the ground lying on its side.

My son went to the road to check on neighbors.  Jerry, our neighbor across the street, was missing.  We quickly formed a search party.  Another neighbor remembered that our neighbor, Mike, had a cellar.  We started looking for it.  As Dennis walked across the yard, he climbed onto a pile of tree limbs to look around.  He heard screams and pounding and realized that he was standing on top of two trees that had fallen on top of the cellar door.  I yelled for my son to help.  He deadlifts over 500 lbs in competitions.  He couldn't even move those trees.  He went running for a tractor.  He heard a backhoe coming down the road clearing trees.  He waved the man down and had him pull the trees off the door.  One by one my neighbors crawled out.  They had survived a tornado and being buried alive.  There were nine people, six dogs, and a cat in that cellar.  Right before climbing in, my neighbor, Terri, had called my cell phone to find out if we were home.  The call did not go through.  God wanted my family to be out of that cellar so that we could look for her family.

God was watching out for my family.  He had His hand on us in that closet.  I have thanked Him several times for sparing my children.  Unfortunately there were parents in Oklahoma that day that lost their children.  I was a lucky mother.

Why isn't life easy?

As a mother, the hardest thing for me is to watch my children hurt.  Whether it is a physical or emotional pain, neither are easy to witness.  I personally feel that watching my children in emotional pain is the worse.  My eight year old wears her feelings on her shoulders.  She has two settings, happy or sad.  She doesn't get mad, she doesn't get angry, and she never is out for revenge.  Unfortunately that sets her up for a lot of heartache.  She feels for others and allows them to run over her in the process.  My seventeen year old is tougher, but he gets mad.  Most of the time he focuses that anger on me.  He "blames" me for a lot of wrongs in his life.  I think he feels that I should be able to fix more than I can.  He knows that I'm not superwoman, but that doesn't stop him from wishing.

Proud Mommy

I was sent a copy of the local newspaper tonight that has my son on the front cover.  He is one of 43 high school students that was awarded a scholarship for a week long trip to Washington, D.C.  He gets to have an amazing trip with an incredible learning experience.  He is going to meet people from all over the U.S.   He will get to see national monuments and visit places of American history.  Why?  Because he was dedicated to his local, state, and national FFA.  He not only believes in it, he is active in it.  He wears his blue and gold jacket with pride.  But not as much pride as I have of him!

Looking Forward to Spring...

This time of year is a favorite of mine.  Every year for Valentine's day my husband buys me tulips.  After enjoying them for a few days, I send my children out to plant the bulbs.  Then every year at this time, I get to be surprised by the blossoms of those tulips.  I love seeing them all around our acreage.  I love the smell.  The first blooms  this year were red.  I still have yellow, pink, and purple to show themselves.  The best part is that I know that those flowers also represent the love my husband has for his family.  It is the little things he does that makes our world special.  Those flowers are a part of that!

Death-Why so Young?

This weekend I attended two funerals.  Each different in many ways and alike in a few.  Both were part of a family that loved them.  Both were parents.  Both left children behind.  Both cared about the people in their lives.

The differences were amazing...one, a mother of three boys, died from breast cancer.  She fought a good fight, but her body couldn't go on anymore.  The other, a father of a daughter, died from his addiction.  He choose to put poison into his body that allowed death to knock on his door. 

The mother had asked for a pastor to meet with her three weeks before she died.  She discussed her salvation with him.  She planned with her parents how the services would go and how her children would be prepared for her death.  She made a point of letting her sons know that they were loved and she planned for their future.

The father lived a life that society doesn't consider normal.  His homelife was different from her's in many ways.  He allowed the addiction to rule his life.  He was given every chance to come clean.  He was sent to the best facilities to heal, he had the best doctors, he had a job that he liked, and he had family that loved him.  He couldn't overcome the need to poison his life.

They both were what I considered young...late thirties, early forties.  Why did they die?  What can I learn from it?  

I have decided that I need to plan for the future.  The first thing I am doing is adding to my life insurance.  I am writing a will.  I am writing letters to my children.  I want them to know that they are the best thing I have ever done.  I want my family to know that I love them.  I want my friends to know I admire them.  Starting this week, I will write to one person in my life to tell them what they mean to me.  I want to make my life mean something. 

Pray for my friends.  Pray for their children.  And pray for me.