Romantic love or real love? What do favor?

I have this thing about relationships and how they figure into our lives.  Maybe that is not what I mean.  Maybe I want to say, how is it that a relationship can change each of us so profoundly and then be gone in a heartbeat?  Or a relationship that is there day in and day out that really has no effect on a person whatsoever.  Perhaps I should explain myself further.  

I am amazed at how we each touch each others souls and change each other.  How we can be part of each others lives and entangled and then suddenly the tangle is undone and no more.  As if we are just a puff of smoke or a cloud that passes by as the wind dictates.  A minute in each others lives or a decade or so and then gone.  I wonder why that is?  Some of us stop by for decades to meddle in each others days and hours, some of us stop by for a few days or even years.  There seems to be no reason or rhyme.  It is as if, there is a secret song that only the earth and sea can hear and we are the dancers.  I don't know.  I only dance to the secret tune and so do you.  I ask only why do we have to dance at all. 

When we are young we can be friends with anyone.  We meet another young person and they are our best friends for the day, our best friends for life.  At least we think that as we play our childhood games.  We think that  for this day we are friends and or friendship will last forever.  It amazes us that as the day ends and our parents take us home, so does our friendship.  We forget our friend and our new friends name with the setting of the sun.  It is different as we age. We would no sooner become friends with a stranger than drink poison.  How we grow so cold and ridged as we age.  

We go on throughout our lives and meet people and make connections and hope to meet good friends and find that so few people are to be trusted with our hearts as far as friends go.  We have been hurt, our hearts broken by our so called friends.  We have been destroyed, distraught perhaps betrayed by them.  There were so few that could be true friends.  Maybe that is how God wants it.  You have to earn your friends and they have to earn you.  Through the ashes a true friend will come through the fire and coals to become that one deserved friend.  A friend that is earned.  One friend or maybe two that can be fire worthy.  I have a few friends I can call fire resistant friends.  They know who they are.  

Then there are the lovers.  Movies, TV shows and books tell us that there is this elusive romantic love that we all must seek.  I am not convinced of this romantic lover that I am told I must have.  I believe that there is one heart that will connect with mine and will speak the same language as I do.  That God or whomever you call God has ordained this union through all time and eternity ...perhaps infinity and I will join with this person to create a relationship with which to enrich each other, bring goodness, kindness and prosperity to this union.  At least I hope so.  To what end then is there a reason to be in love?

I believe that being deeply in love is a wonderful thing and this love comes with time and a lot of work.  I don't know about all the weak kneed love struck thing but I do know real love and what I have seen on TV and read in books is not it.   am so not a heaving bosom type of girl.  

I think that the love between a child and a parent or between friends is one of the greatest loves there is.  The love between a husband and wife who have been married for years is true love.  The love of a mother sitting by her child's sick bed is another form of real love.  The love that God has for us is the best love of all. Romantic love seems so fleeting and shallow compared to what is real and worth working for.   I would rather work for something real than have something fake any day.  Wouldn't you?

When I step back and look at the rope we weave that entwines us all together, I think crap I never will figure this out.  Nope, not even close.  

I suppose it is like looking at a beautiful meadow and instead of trying to figure out the complicated eco system it is, I need to be pleased with the wonder of it. OK, I can do that.  I will just enjoy being part of life and the relationships that surround me.  I will always questions them and look oddly at them from time to time but I can simply treasure the joy that simply is.  

So, I ask you, how do you feel that relationships work?  Do you feel that there is such thing as romantic love such as TV and books?  Or, do you think there is something deeper to it?  

Princess Rap

My Husband showed me something on YouTube last night.  He shared me this bit on Cinderella and Belle.  Apparently, they have a rap on YouTube.  

princess rap battle  (I hope I linked this correctly.  Anyway, it is on Youtube, funny stuff)


I watched this clip and I thought of my cousin.  I have talked about her before. You know the one that was so little and perfect.  The one who dumped me for a pony.  

I suppose you would say she was Cinderella and I was Belle.  Except, back then there was no Beauty and the Beast movie to compare me to.  I was this big clod of a girl who could never compare to her perfect teeny tiny blondness.  Good Lord she practically floated she was so light.  She was and is a very nice person which makes it worse.  Except the dumping your best friend for a pony thing.  That was really mean.  Even though I really get it.  What young girl wouldn't dump her best friend since birth for a pony?  Oh...me.  I would never do that.  You think I might be a little bitter over this?  Just a little....  Not really.  I love my cousin.  I just like to tease her.  

Me, I loved my books and stories.   I usually pick the people that are not always the obvious winners.  Like Belle picks the Beast and not Gaston.  Gaston was the good looking guy that everyone thought she should have fallen in love with.  She chose the beast because he had the truest heart.  That is me.  I always choose the people who have the the best hearts.  Even thought most people can't see them.  

Anyway, The princesses in the rap battle go back and forth about who is better and why.  My cousin and I used to have a fights like that.  We had one fight that was epic.  I am a natural brunette.  I dye my hair.  I won't lie about that.  In fact, I love hair dye.  Funnest thing ever, this hair dye thing.  If I could get away with pink hair, I would.  Usually, professional people do not have pink hair.  

Anyway,  one day my cousin went all crazy on me because her hairbrush had brown hair in it.  This brush had so much blond hair in it you could not even see the bristles.  I think there was one brown hair in it.  She started to yell at me that blond hair was better than brown hair and that I was not to use her hairbrush.  I countered that blonds were stupid and brunettes were smarter and I could use her brush any time I liked. We ended up in a fist fight over that stupid brush.  I think we were nine. 

Just watching that princess rap made me think that, if my cousin and I were to fight today like we did back then about who was the better "princess" it would have been very similar to that princess rap battle.  

Clearly there could never be a winner.  Each princess is unique and is beautiful and brings gifts and talents to this world.  Maybe, each princess needs to just be happy with who she is and love the other princesses.  

In my experience there will always be someone younger and prettier who comes along.  Someone smarter, with more education, who has more money or connections and basically wipes the floor with you.  Who cares?  Just do the best with what you have and be happy for everyone else.  If you truly are happy for everyone else then you won't need a princess rap battle.  Although, it was really funny, I had to watch it twice. 

I suppose this is were I could go on about how we as women make it so hard on ourselves.  That basically we are our own worst enemies.  That we are so busy being in competition with each other, bringing each other down, calling each other names, trying to get the better spouse or stabbing each other in the back we block ourselves from ruling the world.  Just because we want to be the prettiest princess.  

I say, be your own pretty princess.  Be happy in your own heart.  Be happy with what ever it is that you want to do in your life and live the way you want to live.  No need for rap battle of the princesses.  Who cares who has the best purse, shoes or tiara   I love those things but only get them for my enjoyment and not at the cost of something greater.  

I challenge all my friends be you a male or female to be your own prince or princess without bringing others down.  This is a tough one.  Can you do it?  

Life without religion. Life without faith.

I keep thinking about faith and religion.  I have had the pleasure of meeting my daughters best friend.  She is really neat.  I like her a lot.  Most young people are really so not interesting and quite annoying.  I would like to say that most of my daughters friends are very intriguing and intelligent.  This friend of hers did not disappoint.  

I was able to have some really intense conversations with my daughter and her friend.  One of them was the topic of religion and faith.  I learned that she was not raised to believe in Heavenly Father or any religion whatsoever.  She did not believe in any higher power, God or any form of anything at all.  She believes that once she dies the light turns out and that she is simply over.  

I think my heart broke.  Just the end part of my heart, not my whole heart.   I don't know why this bothered me.  Intellectually this is absolutely fine with me.  I have no problem with parents raising their children without any God figure.  On the other hand, when meeting a child raised without a path to enlightenment previously installed, I had a moment of such deep sadness that I stopped breathing for a moment.  How could this be?  My faith was jarred just ever so slightly.  

 I looked into this young women's eyes and asked her, if she felt a presence other than her own guiding light or her own heart speaking to her?   She assuredly told me she knew of no such presence or guiding light.  She did say that her heart did speak to her.  She felt as if there was no omnipotent figure and knew this to be true.  She said that having faith in such things was ridiculous.  

She did tell me of going to her grandmothers church on occasion and sitting in a pew.  She told me that her grandmother and her grandmothers friends would give her pieces of bread throughout the service and that she would have a pile of bread by the time the service was over.  She had no idea what the bread was for.  She did not mention any of the words of the service.  She only mentioned piles of bread and little old ladies who wanted her to eat the bread without any explanation.  Like eating bread without any reason makes it more than bread.  Sure it does.  

Then I got to thinking about faith.  So, just say....You don't believe in anything other than what you can quantify.  You are a science type of person and you need proof and faith is this flower child idea that seems so elusive and cloud like.   How could anyone have faith in something they can't see or feel?  My faith is shaky at best.  I always question everything.  How can someone who does not know God believe or has never had faith in the first place even begin to believe?  

In my heart of hearts I could not argue with her because how could I sway someone from their inner truth.  This would be the same as allowing another to persuade me that my inner truth was wrong.  This is something I cannot nor will I never do.  This is so completely wrong that no one ever should do this.  Perhaps this is the greatest sin of all.  Maybe not, or maybe yes, I cannot say.   

I felt so lost for her.  I grieved for her ability to not know.  Yet, she was not lost nor did she grieve for herself.  I struggled with the thought of parents not sharing with her the ways of a spiritual choice nor a path to choose instead of one of nothing but an end of darkness.  I had thought that a more complete parent would allow a child to choose or at least give their child a more complete education and the ability to choose wisely.  Then again who am I to say?  

I suppose I believe life is this amazing buffet with all these choices available to choose and sample.  As a parent, I think that all of life has to offer should be known to our children.  In the end or children will choose for themselves and it is our choice to accept or deny their choice.  I always choose to stand by my only daughter no matter what her choice.  Except, breaking one of the Ten Commandments then we have words. 

Heavenly Father is my Father and he forgives all.  He has millions of sons and daughters to look after.   I only have one.  I suppose, if he can forgive all of them and me, I can forgive my one.  If he can love me no matter what choice I make, I can love her no matter what choice she makes.  Simple enough, right?  Isn't that the example he sets?  Then it makes sense, I follow his example.  

So, back to my first thought.  What to do with my daughters best friend?  I suppose there is nothing to do.  Other than just accept her and love her like my own.  My husband and I had already decided to make her our "new daughter".  She is completely loved already regardless, if she believes in a higher power or not.  

I pose a question.  Is this wrong of us to not preach to her about God?  Is it wrong of us to  try and not convert her to Christianity?  Or is it right of us to accept her as she is and love her as she is and let her be happy being our new daughter and being who she is.  

What do you think? 

Modern Communication...What is it?

I keep thinking about our modern world.  What is it about smart phones and the Internet that seemingly makes us leave the face to face world of people and invest so much time with a hand held device?

I had the pleasure of having young people at my home for a week.  Now, there is no mistake I love my phone and I love the Internet.  Facebook is my friend and all the modern world is an amazing place.  Yet, I noticed something interesting.  My daughter and her friend, I call her my new daughter, spent most of their time face forward looking at their phones instead of interacting with me and my Husband.  Even while engaged in conversations with me and my husband they were looking at their phones.  

This got me to thinking about modern relationships and communication.  I started to look around a little bit more.  I noticed that most people, including myself had this other relationship going on with our phones.  I noticed it in my break room at work among other places.  Grown adults from ages 25-60 all looking at smart phones instead of at each other.  

What is it about these devices that are so much more interesting and more entertaining than each other?  I remember being able to sit down in the break room and have a conversation with my peers or co-workers.  When did that all do away?  When did a phone or a hand held device take the place of a person or a face to face interaction?

I sit here blogging and most of the people who read my blog read this on your phones or devices and I wonder about what we have gained and what we have lost.  

Perhaps we are in a flux of change?  Perhaps we are learning something new in the way we communicate with each other.  I would like to think that Facebook was a gift that allowed me to reach out and touch those I thought I had lost.  Becoming a small time blogger has given me the opportunity to speak to anyone who will read my words on a scale I could have never imagined.  The Internet has allowed me to see and understand so many more points of view and now I feel like I can be more open minded and I hope a more loving person.  

Yes, I think for right now this phone gazing and seemingly odd way of communicating seems kinda selfish but I think it is a step into something bigger then what we have ever known before.  Maybe we are stepping into a future that only we have dreamed about in movies and books about the way we communicate with each other.  

I can only hope this time in our humanity is a step into a future of amazing possibilities.  That this "smart phone" is just the beginning.  Maybe one day we will just think it and it will be so.  I can think a text to you and you will receive my text.  I kinda like that.  I will take a picture with my eye and send it to a mind/brain Internet that will be so beautiful and perfect that no camera would ever be able to capture it the same.  

We are really just babies you know in the timeline of man.  Just toddlers really taking our first steps.  I tend to be overly thoughtful in my view of things and way to pragmatic.  I think for this I will just let it go.  It is what it is.  

When I am old, I think I will re-read this blog and find out, if I was correct or at least partially right.  

What do you think?  Do you think we are simply so engrossed with ourselves and our phones that we are selfish and so self absorbed that we cannot communicate properly anymore?  Or, do you think we are simply learning to communicate on a higher level and this is a baby step into something amazing?  

Entitlement: What does it mean?

My daughter is in town this week.  She came home to help us out.  We needed a doggy babysitter. So, her and her friend stopped by for a few days while we were on a mini vacation.  

We really love having her here. I had never expected her to go away to college and never come home.   Yet, my daughter decided that she wanted to be an independent person and do life on her own terms.  I think I am the only person I know that had a child move out at 18 years old and stay out.  She is one amazing person.  

Anyway, I don't get so see her very often and it really is fun to spend time with her.  We have been doing a lot of sitting around the table exchanging ideas and debating politics, religion and other things.  Better yet, her friend fits right in.  

Nothing better than exchanging ideas with people who have a thought or two in their brains and can back up those thoughts with words and facts.  I love folks like this.  Good to have her home.  

Anyway, we started to talk about what entitlement meant.  The conversation started with why our public schools sucked so bad.  Why the taxes we paid were not sufficient enough for the demand that the public schools required of them.  My daughter and her friend had no idea what the reasons were other than what the TV or the Media told them.  

We talked about how that each group of immigrants that came to America came here with this willingness to work and assimilate into the American culture.  Each group gave as much as they took and gave back to our Country in so many colorful and meaningful ways.  Now, the immigration trend has been people more willing to receive hand-outs then to work.  Our economy could not then and cannot now sustain this shift of more take then give.  That eventually the bough would break and it all would come tumbling down.

My daughter asked about her own ancestors and I told her that they all came here with nothing and earned their way like everyone else until the recent immigrants.  My Husband told the same story of his own people.  We told my daughter and her friend that our people never felt this sense of entitlement that immigrants tend to have; they expect everyone to give them everything simply because they can creep over the boarder under the cover of darkness.  

I told a story that my mother told of her own father.  How he never thought he would own his own home.  How he thought that only those who could pay cash for a home or who had money.  His son, my uncle, had to explain to him that he had a job and explain the concept of a mortgage.  My grandfather finally owned a home and achieved the American Dream.  He did not believe that anyone should give him a home or support him.  He made it on his own without the benefit of Welfare or Medical.  

My Husband asked me later, if the "Girls" understood what we said to them.  I said heck no.  That they still lived in the ideal world bubble and had never had over 50% of their paychecks taken from them...yet.  That they were still young and still believed in the goodness of men.  They still believed that people would never just come here to take and not give back.  Strip a country bare and laugh all the way to the bank while we let them.   

I told him of my fathers friends and how they would rant on and on at our dining room table and how I thought they were a bunch of "dicks" at the time.  How years later I understood what they were talking about and understood their wisdom.  I told him his words were not wasted just not understood today.  

I feel bad for our youth.  They are inheriting a world of people who are full of this sense of bloated entitlement.  This world of people who believe that they are to be served and catered to without ever having served another in their whole lives.  

I suppose I could go on an on about this.  I have just touched the very top of the subject and so much can be said.  There are so many touchy feelings when this subject comes up.  Yet after our conversation this evening, I asked what I should blog about.  It was unanimous...I was to talk about entitlement or at least try. 

What do you think about entitlement?  Do you think our world is full of people who have not worked for what they have?  Do you think we should just give what we have worked for to others who have not worked at all?  

I think we should all work to some capacity.  We should all do something for as long as we can and be as productive as possible.  We should all earn our way in this world and be happy doing what we do, if we are lucky.  I honestly do not think that what I earn should be given to anyone else unless I freely give it away.  I do not think I should be given anything unless I earn it or it was given to me as a gift.  

I guess I am tired of seeing more and more of what I earn going to people who do nothing for my hard work.  For example, here in California, we are in a drought.  We have spent so much money on our welfare system that we cannot spend any money on infrastructure.  Our water mains are busting all over the place.  We as a State are taxed insanely and now we are going to be fined, if we use to much water.  

I pay taxes so that the infrastructure is intact and working.  I pay for water to be here even in a drought.  I use water wisely.  Yet, I have to pay for all those who do not pay taxes or for anything else and I will be fined for using to much water and for the increase in taxes to fix the busted water mains.  How is this fair or right?  Why do the responsible hard working people keep paying and paying and get less and less and those who pay nothing get more and more?  Why?

I pose the question: how did those who do nothing and break the law end up being so entitled and those who work hardest be the servants of the entitled?

Has Vegas gone PG?

So, we went to Vegas for a couple of days.  As always we had fun.  For us, Vegas is a time relax.  We get a little suite and spend time in our room.  I know lots of folks don't spend time in their rooms but we do.  

I have heard people say who stays in their rooms in Vegas, we do.  We wake up late.  Get up for a few minutes and then go back to bed.  We sit and just talk to each other and get to know each other all over again.  Sometimes we get all crazy and order room service.  

My favorite thing is the pool.  I can spend days there.  We don't have a pool at home.  We have been in negotiations over a pool for our home for a very long time.  I think I have lost the fight on the pool now that California is in perma drought.  My Husband has said that, when we retire, I can have a pool.  I might have to get that in writing and notarized he tends to change his mind about things like that.  Anyway, if the sun is out, I will spend as long as my Husband is willing to let me stay baking in the sun.  As long as I can have a good book, a yummy juice drink and no one talking to me I am happy.  He tends to do other things in the casino.  Men will be men.  

Anyway, I had an interesting epiphany this Vegas trip.  We were sitting in the lounge at Caesars.  You know the one right in front of the main gambling area and I noticed that there were a lot of people with small children walking past us and many of them with babies in strollers.  

I guess I never saw it before.  Maybe I wasn't paying attention but there it was.  Babies everywhere.  I thought ...what the heck?  Who brings children let alone a baby to Vegas?  I personally have come to Vegas to get away from a small child a few times but never to bring one there.   

So, in my little tiny brain, I kept thinking about the process a parent must go through to justify in bringing a child to Vegas.

Scenario one, they were passing through and needed a place to stay.  OK, that is justifiable but why not at a non gambling establishment.  Maybe a residence Inn, eat at a Applebee's someplace that does not place your child in an environment with smoke, gambling or half naked women.  Let them decide, if they place themselves in a Vegas like situation when they are adults and can reason such a choice out.  

Scenario two, they have to go to Vegas for a wedding and the children need to be there for the ceremony.  Once again, stay someplace else.  Bring the kids for the ceremony then leave immediately.  I just don't see how a child belongs in a casino.  Ever.  

Scenario three, parents are totally selfish people and bring the kids thinking they will each take turns watching the kids.  They fight openly in the casino about who is going to take the kids so the other parent can have fun.  Each parent is equally drunk and hating the other parent for "ruining" their fun.  I would say this is not a good example of good parenting for their children or the people watching them.  

What I noticed was these parents were drinking adult beverages as they walked a circle around the gaming areas with their strollers full of infants or holding hands with their toddlers.  Funny thing, they seemed to think that, if they placed a blanket over the baby in the baby carriage, it was like placing a cone of silence over the infant.  That this blanket of protection kept all the noise, evil and smoke away from their precious infant.  Sure it was.  

I also noticed the toddlers were barley walking as they held their parents hands.  These toddlers were up and with their parents well past midnight.  Their eyes were half mast, feet dragging as their moms wore cha cha heels and their dads sipped tall ones.  I kept thinking how could this possibly be fun for anyone?  A cranky, sleepy toddler and a drunk selfish parent?  Not a good combo, not now, not ever.  

So, I had always thought of Vegas as an adults only place.  Especially the casinos and half naked areas and the areas that promote them.  A Disney for the over 21 crowd.  Has Vegas gone PG?

So, tell me, have you ever taken your kids to an adult venue such as Vegas and expected to have adult fun?  I know that I never have.  My Daughter had a bedtime until she graduated high school.  I never took her to an R rated movie or allowed her to go to one until she could take herself.  Vegas is a place I never even thought of taking my child or even stopping by with her.  Tell me, am I missing something?  

What is it that would prompt you to bring your child to Vegas or to an adult situation like an R rated movie at midnight on a Saturday night?  Am I old fashioned?  If so, educate me, I need to know.  

My Friend is going to Heaven

I have a friend who is going to die.  I suppose you would say that she is more of an acquaintance than a friend.  I consider her my friend.  

I met her when my Daughter was seven.  I had moved from South Orange County to Riverside.  I had placed my Daughter in a private school and she was one of the first people I met.  

There were a bunch of first children in this class most of them girls.   I was told by the educators that it was something not seen very often.  We became a very tight group.  

I was one of two single Mom's and only two who had one child.  In this school it was basically unheard of.  

This friend I made was the mother of three at the time, all girls.  She was so very nice to me.  She was a stay at home mom and just so very pleasant.  She made you feel as, if I was not weird for having no Husband and that I worked, but that I was just like everyone else.  She made me feel normal.  

One of the first things I noticed about her was that she was not like all the other Mom's.  She was round and pleasantly plump. Not the typical barbie Mom that I had seen walking around.  Yet, everyone loved and adored her.  

She also carried everything in her bra.  She had a phone, Kleenex, money and some candy in there.  I was fascinated by this.  In fact, to this day, I carry many things in my "Special Pockets".  One of her kids would come up to her and need money or something and bam, there it was, five bucks.  Amazing, I always have something my Double D's.  I think of  her every time and smile.  Women with smaller breasts cannot pull this off, definitely for the larger buxom gal.  

Sad thing, my friend, ended up having breast cancer and had to have her breasts removed.  I had hoped that was the end of it, but no it wasn't.  Her body developed cancer all over.  She fought so hard and for so long.  She sought all treatments and climbed every mountain to win this battle.  She has lost her battle and I am told that her body will end soon.  

I lost contact with my friend after my Daughter graduated from eighth grade and we moved.  I was thankful for Facebook and in kept touch with her there.  I knew that she had cancer.  I was so happy, when she went to Paris and started to enjoy her time with her Husband instead of treatment after treatment.  I was overjoyed, when she started to talk about her cancer with all of us so we could encourage her and be on her team.  Cheer her on and pray for her after every post.  I prayed for and her family every day.  I prayed for Gods will and the courage to accept his will with fortitude.  

My other friend asked me what we should do.  I said there is nothing to do.  Not yet anyway, not now.  I told my other friend that this time is for our mutual friend and her immediate family.  They need to say goodbye to their beloved Mother and this body she lives in right now.  That God always calls home the most good and beloved early.  He has special plans for them.  

My other friend and I both have Mothers that have passed on.  We both lost our Mothers relatively young in our adult lives comparatively to most others.  I know that my heart aches for my Mother to this day and I miss her so much.  How I wish I could talk to her and hear her voice.  Smell her perfume and touch her hand.  I know my friend grieves for her mother the same.  I know that our Mutual friends children will grieve the loss of their Mother desperately.  

I can only believe that our friend will go to be with our Lord and perhaps her work in Heaven will be to ease those souls who are confused or lost like I was  and make them feel right at home and comfortable.  I hope so.  She was born to be an Angel.  She was my Angel.  

What can we do on earth right now?  I really don't know.  Trust in God and his process of life and death I suppose.  I have been through so many passings of folks.  Those of my own people and those of people I did not know.  It is truly an honor to be there when a soul passes over.  Not something I like to do because it is very sad but it is something that reminds you of how complete of a real circle life really is.  

My Mother's Mother passed of Breast Cancer when my Mom was 14 years old and she was left to raise her 7 year old sister and take care of a household of men.  She dropped out of school and had to get a job.  Not easy to be sure but she did it all.  I don't think I could have done that without a major temper tantrum and a poor me fest everyday for years.  I think my Mom is in heaven right now doing what she loved, taking care of babies.  

What I would say to my friends daughters, I would tell them to be patient with themselves and to just take your time.  That your never going to get over this but eventually the days and nights will seem a little brighter and things won't seem so horrible.  Remember that your Mom will want you to be happy.  She fought so hard because she did not want you to be sad that she was gone.  The best thing you could do is to be happy and be the best you can be.  Also, take care of that little brother of yours just like she would have.  

I have a picture of me and my Mom on the inside of my kitchen cupboard, I kiss my fingertips and touch them to my Moms face everyday.  Just to remember her.  Keep your Mom in your heart.  I always try to be like her.  If I can be just 1% like my Mom, then I know I am a good person.  I hope you try and be like your Mom.  

My friend is fading from this world and my heart hurts that her beautiful smile is no longer going to be here, yet I know someday I will see her smiling again at me, when I go to heaven.  At least I hope so.