Among the many mysteries, and adventures in life are the people we meet and the reasons and places we meet them in and what they end up meaning to us. As 2011 comes to a close and another year rolls by slowly, I like to think back to people I haven’t seen in ages. People who had no idea how they affected my way of life and how I choose to live it. Ultimately, we all know it is the things we are taught, combined with the experiences we lived through that makes us who we are today.
The first and foremost people we all tend to remember in the Holiday Season each year is our own families. The parents who raised us and provided homes and education and clothing and food for us. Yes our dear Fathers and Mothers, they have us, give birth to us, feed us, wash us, care for us and discipline us too. Something they got overly emotional, or physically too strong for us, but they tried as they might to teach us right from wrong and to teach us to do better than them. Did we only time would tell and in the end if we didn’t we sure learned a lot from them and got a lot from them didn’t we?
Then, we come to our siblings the ones we grew up side by side with in the same home, and learned with. They are supposed to be the next closest to us, aren’t they. Well not all families have that comfort and knowledge as some of us well know. Some of us have no idea who our so-called siblings are or were, during our lifetimes. We loose contact with them as they go their own ways and do their own things. So to my siblings out there, there were a total of five of us, Keith, me. Alex(Deceased) April (the only girl) and the baby boy Mathew where ever he may be, I think of each of you this Holiday Season and Wish you all the best. As our mother once said, before her death ” Your Brothers and Sister are all you have after I am gone, Love and live together.” It didn’t work that way mom sorry and may never be, but the message you gave stays with me.
What do you say about a man who was a contradiction each day of his life, yet raised you and loved each of us in his own way.? Yes he wasn’t perfect, yes he was violent and damaged us sometimes both mentally and physically, but he provided, everything he had to us in his own way. He took a woman with two small kids and raised us as his own, provided homes, food, clothing and more, and never once abandoned us in anyway.He didn’t have to raise another man’s sons, he could have run away, yet each and everyday he did stay. Happy Holiday Dad where ever you may be now, for you did what you could for all of us somehow.
Then, you begin to spread wider in your circles of life and remember childhood friends you spent important hours with exploring, playing and learning from and being accepted by. Each a special friend in their own right, and in their own way, who helped to make you the person you are today. My friends range in age and sex and in income and color and race, but not one of them would I ever replace. I won’t name, names here because there are so many who helped me become the man I am today.
So, as I now look back at the end of 2011, the parents that raised me are long dead and gone, my siblings lives have moved on. My older friends are now all grown and each of us have families all our own. So as the Holiday Season burns so bright and outside are all the Christmas Lights. The lights all pretty and all bright, the tress lighting up the houses each night. The decorations all about, and the hope for Peace is within a shout. May God Bless my family and my friends, may God make us all Healthy, Happy and Peaceful once again. May Christmas bring us closer to those we love most, God Bless us all, from Jesus, to Mary and The Holy Ghost!.
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