Full Circle

Sometimes things happen in your life that bring back a feeling or something you lived through before.  This stroke my English Bulldog had last January made it so that he was for a few months an invalid and needed constant care.  He couldn't walk without difficulty and cried constantly because he dididn't like being in the play yard and unable to get around.  He's was on steroids so he was thirty constantly and drank a lot which made him need to go outside a lot to pee.  I had to drag him to the back door on a blanket because he was too heavy for me to lift and he went down the temporary ramp and came back in but didn't want to lay on the blanket and go back to his bed.  So many things came back to me from motherhood from this experience.  I remember trying to make my children mind me when something was for their own good and having them test my resolve and  patience every day.  I remember the years of taking care of Taryn when she had her pheochromosytoma tumor surgeries.  It was hard knowing that she was in terrible much pain constantly. There was nothing I could do to stop it or make it better.  I had to put one foot in front of the other and do what came next.  I hadn't thought about that experience in a long time.  Not to this extent anyway.  I remember smiling at Taryn and being cheerful and happy until she went to sleep and then I could cry myself to sleep.  I couldn't let her see me break down or see how worried and scared I was. 

I don't know how I held it together for all those years and through so many surgeries with Taryn.  How did I manage to do all I did for my kids?  Through all of the years of being a young mother and how hard it was to take care of my children and make sure they had what they needed every day, all day long.  You move into phases of your life where things start to come full circle.  Where you get these new experiences that really aren't new at all.  You get reminders of just how much you're capable of and how you could always do things that would amaze you that hardly anyone ever saw.  It's a lot like exercise.  You get strong and if you don't keep doing it you get weak again.  Maybe this is just God's way of keeping me strong?  Keeping me grateful and humble?  My niece, Heather, told me her grandmother said that when things get hard it's just God bragging to the devil about you.  I laughed and thought of that image.  As a mother you don't think about it when your children need help.  You just do what needs to be done.  One of my favorite songs is Circle Game by Joni Mitchell.  It's all about life's cycles.  I used to listen to it wondering how my life would unfold.  Now I listen to it realizing the truth behind her words.  It all makes sense when you wait for things to come full circle.

The Circle Game

Joni Mitchell

Yesterday a child came out to wonder
Caught a dragonfly inside a jar
Fearful when the sky was full of thunder
And tearful at the falling of a star
And the seasons they go round and round
And the painted ponies go up and down
We're captive on the carousel of time
We can't return we can only look behind
From where we came
And go round and round and round
In the circle game

Then the child moved ten times round the seasons
Skated over ten clear frozen streams
Words like, when you're older, must appease him
And promises of someday make his dreams
And the seasons they go round and round
And the painted ponies go up and down
We're captive on the carousel of time
We can't return we can only look behind
From where we came
And go round and round and round
In the circle game

Sixteen springs and sixteen summers gone now
Cartwheels turn to car wheels through the town
And they tell him,
Take your time, it won't be long now
Till you drag your feet to slow the circles down
And the seasons they go round and round
And the painted ponies go up and down
We're captive on the carousel of time
We can't return we can only look behind
From where we came
And go round and round and round
In the circle game

So the years spin by and now the boy is twenty
Though his dreams have lost some grandeur coming true
There'll be new dreams, maybe better dreams and plenty
Before the last revolving year is through
And the seasons they go round and round
And the painted ponies go up and down
We're captive on the carousel of time
We can't return, we can only look behind
From where we came
And go round and round and round
In the circle game

And go round and round and round
In the circle game

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9VoLCO-d6U