Welcome baby Ollie…. you share a birthday month with your Auntie Kathleen and your great Aunt Debi!! What a joy to have been present at our fourth grandchilds birth… thank you Kari and Matthew and congrats to “Big-Sister” Stella. Auntie Leann and Uncle Matt are watching closley as they count down the weeks before they give birth to our fifth grandbaby. Mom’s medication has been changed due to her hospitalization last month and she is feeling sooooooo much better. I’m very unhappy with the over medicating of our elderly and have pretty much decided that from now on I’m not leaving the Dr’s office until all the issues are met. The older I get the more I realize how much I know… so watch the hell out for ME!

It’s been three years ago today since Tom passed away and we are celebrating the up coming birth of our fifth grandchild at Leann’s baby shower. I look around at the 40+ faces and know there are only a couple that remember this bitter sweet day as vividly as I do. It stings that he is gone but the deep pain of the years he suffered and the months he lay dying have been diluted by the sweetness of all the wonderful things we have been blessed with in the past 36 months. Tom would not want us stuck in the past or fearing the future so in his honor I find joy in the present as we continue to keep his memory alive by bestowing his name to his great nephew. Thank you Leann and Matt for naming your first child Brodie Thomas, your tribute means so much to me.

To Brodie, Ollie and their Uncle Tom…. “If Only I Could”

a brand new baby was born yesterday
just in time
papa cried, baby cried
said your tears are like mine
I heard some words
from a friend on the phone
didn’t sound so good
the doctor gave him two weeks to live
I’d give him more if I could

you know that I would now
If only I could

down the middle drops one more
grain of sand
they say that
new life makes losing life
easier to understand
words are kind
they helped ease the mind
of this, my old friend
and though you gotta go
we’ll keep a piece of your soul
one goes out
one comes in~Jack Johnson