Older. Wiser? Weaker? Stronger!

When the year began it was as though I'd turned a corner and found myself walking along a different street, on a different path.

I knew this year would come, was coming. I felt I would see it, feel it, touch it and even smell all the fragrances of life -- sweet, sour, mellow, bright. 

Like light and shadow; movement and stillness. Life and the living. Death and the dying.

Each month that passes the time grows closer. What will it really be like? Hitting that mark. Being at that exact point in time? Will I weep? Will I laugh? How will I meet this inevitable part of my journey?

Before January 2011 I would have sang a song of happiness and anticipation. Thinking back and looking forward. Dreaming dreams and making plans. 

Life had been good, for the most part. 
     Tomorrow would be better.

Decay and germination. Related opposites.

One feeds the other, one rises from another.

It's May. Almost through the month. Mother's Day wasn't as challenging as it has been although Mom was in my thoughts. 

We went to her old facility, visited a woman we've befriended and so many others who sit, wait and are in line for their final journey. 

Each had gone their own way and now come together. 
         One by one they come; one by one they go.

Sometimes I wonder where the time HAS gone. January 2011. Seven years. SEVEN YEARS. How can that be?

Looking forward we couldn't see seven days and now it's been seven years -- moving towards eight.

Four years. 
        Years within years. 
            Tears not forthcoming then flowing nonstop.

Weight carried in our hearts, in our minds and occupying every fiber of our being.

Admittedly the load has shifted.     It's compressed a little. 

The distribution is a little easier to carry  and we make the load lighter for one another as we carry it together moving forward, day by day.

In May so many years ago there was such great anticipation. I was graduating from College. We were engaged since March. We were going to be married in October.

I would leave the only "home" I knew, the one with my mother, my amazing and always, always there for me, mother.

Plans for "the wedding" helped to set aside my angst. After all, that's WHAT WE DID.  We "left our parent(s)" and made our way in the world with someone else beside us.

And so we did. For three years. 
Then we became reunited.          
We added our first child. 
We added my mother to our family.

Raised in love you usually give with an open heart. There are no questions about "what if", there is understanding you will go through and beyond whatever. 

And so we did. Almost four decades together.

Today we ridicule and taunt many who chose multigenerational living. 

Sitcoms thrive on these  "dysfunctional relationships"

Sadly they do not see the truth because to see would be to miss, to be without, to not have and to have given up.

We grow older. 
      We hope to grow wiser.

We sometimes become weaker.
      We learn how to grow stronger.