……………………..I just came across this photo of me with my three Godsons, my nephews Peter, Mathew and Jonathan, and my two nieces, Jeannine and Danielle……Mathew, the tallest of my nephews, is also the baby! He’s 6’6″ tall!!!….I had to take a moment, and sit…..and remember…..remember hiding the Easter eggs and helping Mathew find them under the bushes…..watching their faces opening their Christmas presents on Christmas morning…..and all the Thanksgiving’s Jac and I had at our home with the family……When this photo was taken they were all teenagers starting on their paths of life…….It brought back a flood of memories…of them….and of me……If I really concentrate and think about it there is a lot from my childhood that I remember….and also a lot I have forgotten. I remember silly little things like my first day at kindergarten, and watching my mother walk home, as my nose was pressed against the window……. taking a stray kitten home….and my mother making me take it back to its’ mother, because I was very allergic to cats……starting little camp fires in the empty lots with my friends and coming home reeking of smoke, and getting in BIG TROUBLE….as a teenager…hiding my cigarette packs behind the radiator cover in my bedroom thinking what a clever hiding place this was!…..only to find out years later that my mother knew all the time. She said to me…”what did you think….I didn’t clean there?”……I guess I didn’t think….I stupidly thought I got away with it….All those years my Mom never said anything……..We all have our stories that took us on the eventual PATH THAT BROUGHT US TO HERE!…..It’s been one of the joys of my life to see all of my nephews and nieces…..from the day they were born… to grow as toddlers…..through their terrible twos …..their puberty days and then blossom into beautiful teenagers with full blown personalities of their own……I have endlessly enjoyed watching them navigate through their lives, and taking their own paths…..Now they are all adults, some with children of their own……There is a whole new generation to watch, and observe the choices they make, and see where their inner compass takes them…………..and life goes on
