Taryn's Self Portrait

I entered Taryn's self portrait in a contest for art at BYU Idaho Spirit Week Art Contest.  Here's what I wrote.

This picture was composed by my daughter, Taryn Elkins. Taryn was a gifted photographer with talent for the unusual. She saw life in a unique way and always surprised me with her eye for beauty. This is a self portrait. She felt fragmented. She did this shortly after she moved away from home for the first time. Taryn died when she was 27, in January 2017 from complications during the birth of her first child. Her pictures are her legacy to us.

If she wins, her prize will be donated to the PreEclampsia foundation in her name.

Living Legacy

I entered this essay in a contest at BYU Idaho.  I'm an alumni there from the class of 1978.  The theme was Living Legacy.  This picture is me and my dad in 2004.  Two years before he passed away.  

I read a quote recently that stated that children don’t follow our advice they follow our example. Living the Legacy means living that set of values and principles handed down by our parents that help us raise our own children. No matter what we accomplish in this life, there is no greater success than to provide a good example for our children to follow. It sets them up for a life of kindness, humility, and grace. When we realize that love is all that really matters in our lives, it gives us the ability to not just survive our trials, but grow and become all we can be in that process.

I had a father who taught me to give. He was the finest example of kindness and forgiveness that I’ve ever known. I followed his lead in my life. He was not famous or well known but he was a great man. My father was raised in a children’s home in the 1940s at the end of World War II. His parents divorced and sent their six children in many different directions to be raised by family members and orphanages. He was four years old when he was left at a children’s home by his father.

Instead of living a life of resentment and growing up with pain or anger, he grew up a kind and giving person. His life was not easy and his sweet nature was not broken by his circumstances. He forgave his parents for what they did in abandoning him and his siblings. I never heard an unkind word come from him when he spoke of his parents. He loved them unconditionally. I learned from his great example to forgive everyone everything.

His actions molded and shaped who I grew up to become. We weren’t a wealthy family and when he passes away 11 years ago, he didn’t leave us much monetarily. My father left me with something much more valuable, something money can’t buy, his legacy of love. I taught my children the lessons I learned as a child, how to be forgiving, loving, and how to make this world a better place. I did my best to teach my children to make a difference in the world and to love others as they wanted to be loved themselves. It’s one of my greatest joys to see them with their own children, providing a good example for my grandchildren.

Three years ago my 27 year old daughter passed away from complications of childbirth. Her death would have made it easy for us as a family to be bitter and angry. We lost her and my first grandchild, a beautiful perfect little boy. I have been told by many that they don’t know how they would have survived this kind of loss. I know I was prepared to deal with my trials in life through what I learned as a child. My father looked for the positive in all that happened to him. He told me many times that everything happens for a reason, even if it’s only to teach us what not to do.

I think living by example is the greatest gift you can give your children. I gave my sons and my daughter my father’s heart because it was inside of me. My children are my living legacy. I would not be who I am without the lessons of my father and the love of my children. It’s a simple thing really. Each generation benefits from the lessons of the last one. I believe that’s the purpose of my life, to leave that living legacy when I die. To me there will be no greater joy, than to know my children will carry on in their own families, our living legacy.

Good Times

Parents see this.  Whenever they look at their 40 year old child they see this baby with chubby hands and no hair.  I do this all the time when I think of my kids.  No matter what they do in life or where they go they are this to me.  Infants.  I see the chubby little fingers and the drooling faces and those big bright eyes that sparkle.  I cherished this time in their lives.  Every squeeze and every little laugh they gave me were pure magic.  I'm thankful for all the pictures I took of them and the videos we made time to record.  I don't have a lot of the videos right now because my ex husband is working on a video of Taryn's life and someday it will be ready to watch.  Much like this blog I'm writing one day at a time.  He said he can't watch too much of it without feeling sad and sometimes breaking down.  I feel the same way about the pictures and things that flood my mind with questions.  Why didn't I do a better job of being in the moment with Taryn?  Why was I always so pre occupied with things and not paying enough attention?  Why didn't I put everything down and just sit holding her hand?  Well for one thing she would have looked at me like I was NUTS.  This is the look I got when I did stuff like that....

Eyyyyahhh that's about it.  Mom?  Have you lost your mind??  hahahaha  Quit being so WIERD.  Sigh.  Mothers are not popular with teenagers for the most part.  We ask too many questions.  We nag about things like oh, homework and chores.  We ask those questions they don't want to answer such as, have you thought about what you want to do after high school?  Where's your report card?  You're failing math??  Okay time to QUIT Mc Donalds and do your school work.  Not popular.  However it did get Christian through to graduation and that was pretty amazing.  

Even during graduation and their first jobs you see that little baby up there.  The time that flew by so fast you don't know where it went.  Now, with everything I've been through I still miss that baby in my arms.  That little girl who I could cuddle and who would stick her little fingers under her bedroom door at night because she didn't want to go to bed yet.  I'd go take a bath and come out and she'd be sitting in the middle of our bed with a big bowl of popcorn watching MASH with her father.  He'd grin at me and nothing needed to be said.  I only wish I had pictures of that.  I do somewhere, I'll get them added to this blog soon as I find them.

That was a happy time.  There were lots of those when the kids were babies.  I was very happy and content.  It was challenging but raising kids is hard and it's not the kid part that trips you up, it's the YOU part.  Adapting your own personality to being there for your family.  Taming your impulses and your anger sometimes.  Picking your battles and making sure you're not over reacting to something that won't matter tomorrow.  Little feelings matter more than a clean house.  Stuff like that.

Life wasn't perfect but no life is.  That's the time you learn those important lessons.  You stop expecting so much and start being happy with what you have.  I miss being a young family.  I miss the nights of sleeping in my bed knowing my children were in the next room.  I miss the routine of taking care of them, cooking for them and cleaning up after them.  I never thought I'd miss those things but I do.  I miss their silliness and their picky eating habits.  I even miss them fighting with each other and whining about stuff.  I got so good at diffusing arguments and being a referee.  

That's my life's work.  I loved and still love being a mom.  It doesn't seem all that long ago.  The house on Stockbrook Road, Butterfield Elementary School and those horrible hot summer California nights.  I loved it all.  Taryn was right in the middle of it all.  Literally my middle child.  I used to joke that she never had middle child syndrome because she was the only girl.  That made all of them special.  I guess this is a day for nostalgia.  Reaching back for that sweet feeling I used to take for granted.  All my little chicks in the nest.  Good times.

Chilis

We liked going to Chilis.  This picture was in Moreno Valley California at Chilis one night, shortly before we moved to Colorado in 2006.

She would have been about 17 here.  We didn't know about her tumors then.  That was a happy time.  I was happy, we were moving closer to my family and that was important to me.  I wanted my parents to know my kids. The only bad part was leaving Garrison in California.  If he had been coming with us our joy would have been complete.  Garrison took these pictures that night.  He was on the other side of the table with Misty.  These are two of my favorite pictures of me and Taryn.  There weren't too many because I don't like to have my picture taken.  I don't know why.  Maybe Taryn was a lot like me that way.  She didn't like other people to take her picture but she took beautiful ones of herself.  

I set up several photographers at different times who wanted her to model for them and she would get so sick to her stomach right before the shoot that she would cancel.  She got physically sick thinking about doing it.  That's when I realized it took more than beauty for a girl to model.  You have to have a certain kind of personality to be able to actually do that.  Beauty isn't enough.  It also takes more than a good voice to be rock star.  You need that larger than life personality to go with it.  Talent is essential but it's not enough.  Interesting isn't it?

All of us who live average normal lives think it's so easy to do stuff like that because it looks fun and easy.  It's not.  It's horrible for some people who are terribly shy like she was.  If she hadn't been like that she could have had a pretty awesome career in modeling I think.  She had so many different "looks" and could change her hair and completely re do herself.  She was constantly re inventing herself.  

As she got older and more confident she would be less concerned about what anyone else thought.  She was still shy but she was bold in a way that made her have inner strength.  People with inner strength can still be very private and she was.   Very few people knew her completely.  Adrian was one who did.  Nikki Aguilar, her best friend did too.  Nikki probably knew her better than anyone else, even me.  They were little girls together in grade school and stayed "besties" all the way until the end.  Nikki was with me the last time we saw her alive.  

I learned a lot about Taryn from Nikki.  There are things that are personal to Nikki that I doubt she'll ever share with anyone that are just between her and Taryn forever.  They watched Greys Anatomy together and Nikki was Taryn's "person".  That special someone who you would do anything for and ask no questions.  If I had to choose a "person" it would have been Taryn.  I know how Nikki feels because we both lost our "person".  I have been so lonely since Taryn died.  I told her everything.  Even the bad stuff.  The stuff you don't know if you should say out loud?  That stuff.  She took it all and didn't judge me for it.  Well not much anyway.  I think mothers and daughters can be hard on each other at times.  At the end of the day there is a strong bond there that is unbreakable.  She used to tell Nikki that SHE could rag on me but no one else could.  Funny right?  I had that with her.  We didn't always agree on things but we agreed to disagree.  

She was my dearest friend.  I trusted her with my thoughts and my fears.  I have a wonderful support system in my life with friends who love me but Taryn was something more than a friend.  She came from me.  She was the "best" of me and living without that is very hard.  I'm grateful for my memory clips that play in my mind on repeat constantly.  Clips of her laugh.  Her anger and her passion for life.  I loved it all.  She is the one person who could ground me.  Daughters have a way of giving to their moms like no other person on earth.  I can honestly say she was a blessing in my life from the moment she was born.  On days when I start feeling sorry for myself that she's gone I remind myself  I'm so lucky to have had her at all.  

Just so you know her favorite thing on the Chilis menu was the chicken alfredo.  Alfredo anything really, but she'd order that and fries with ranch dressing.  I open the menu now and stare at that choice.  I sometimes order the fries with ranch dressing even when I'm not that hungry.  It's funny how we do that isn't it?  Order food for them.  Sometimes I'll buy treats at the grocery store that were her favorites or order her coffee from Starbucks, and I don't drink coffee.  Venti caramel macchiato frappuccino.  Even typing that fills my eyes with tears.  I bought that for her so many times.  The things she loved flood my mind sometimes.  In a good way.  I don't want that to end.  I want it to be like the ocean waves and wash over me so I'll never forget.  How could I?

 

The Little Things

I bought a book on Audible.  One I really like.  It's called "I'd Rather Laugh" by Linda Richman.  I've read this book many times.  It's my feel good "bible".  I first read it many years ago when Ray Williams died suddenly.  I was engaged to marry him.  He was 37, I was 44.  We were 7 years apart but oddly enough I was "younger" than him in many ways.  I struggled to understand death.  I read all the books I could find on how to cope with the desperate feeling I was having.  Nothing made sense anymore.  After 18 years of marriage to someone who treated me like I was invisible this wonderful man comes into my life and six months later he's gone.  Gone.  How does that even happen?

Well Linda's book really helped me deal with loss.  She lost her 29 year old son to a car accident.  She goes into detail about how she dealt with his death.  Some of it was gut wrenching and some of it was hilarious.  We all deal with death in different ways but I fell in love with her.  She's flawed.  So am I.  She makes no apologies for her flaws and neither do I.  I think she and I would be BFFs in another life and I like having cosmic best friends.  The ones that you never actually meet but know you'd connect to if you ever hung out together?

Well Audible did Linda dirty.  The book she read was not the one I read many years ago.  A lot of it was different.  Most people wouldn't notice those little details but I did.  Some of the funniest stories were missing and I knew it.  Last night when I was listening to it I was thinking, "Heyyyyyy wait just a minute here, where's the story about Sammy?????, and the celebrity party she went to at her daughter's house????, those were hilarious and parts I loved.  Gone.  Not in the book she read.  I felt jipped.  Cheated.  Hosed.  PISSED.  Why would they do that?  Cut the audible down to four hours maybe?  Well I wanted the details.  All of them.  Every story she told meant something to me.  Every one of them was like a little life preserver to me.  They were friends of mine and they weren't invited to the party!!

It's not a big deal to most people but it was a huge deal to me.  I got out her actual book and looked at it and sure enough it was as bold as could be.  Missing the good stuff.  Well maybe the "little things" don't mean a whole lot to Audible but they do to me.  I'm going to get her book out and make time to sit with my feet up and a cup of something yummy and read it the old fashioned way.  Short cuts are short for a reason.  They leave stuff out on purpose.  I like all the STUFF I can get especially in the healing venue.  I learned my lesson through.  No more Audible books for me.  I'm cancelling my subscription because they don't give the entire serving of help and that's not acceptable to me.  

Miss Linda is a cherished friend and her words mean the world to me ALL OF THEM.  No short cuts!  The world deserves the stories as she wrote them.  Isn't that just like the world though?  To think they can take those kinds of liberties with our stuff?  Oh no one will care.  It's not that big a deal.  Until it is.  I love the little things.  A whole bunch of them make up the best things in life.  That's what I think anyway.  I didn't like the feeling at all.  I didn't like that Audible chose what mattered most to me and what didn't.  That book was perfection exactly as it was.  That's what I wanted, the whole enchilada.  It was as if someone took a bite out of my enchilada and they served it to me.  I don't think so!!

Well there you have it.  All I can figure is there are other editions and versions of the book.  Maybe I had one of the first printings of it.  I feel bad for the people who didn't get it all and a little special that I did. The little things.  Optional to some people.  Not on my watch.

Family Pictures

In 2006 we had family pictures taken at Sears.  It was right before Christian, Taryn and I moved to Colorado.  Garrison and Misty were staying in California and it about tore out our hearts to be leaving them behind.  So I made an appointment to have family pictures done.  I'll forever be grateful for those decisions.  I love these pictures.  They give you a little glimpse of the past that warms your heart.  I did scrap books when the kids were little but I'm way behind in catching them up.  That's on the agenda for retirement.  By then who are we kidding?  I won't remember anything! hahahaha

 The kids looked so cute in these pictures.  Christian still had a chubby little face from his baby days, he was 14 here, Garrison still had hair and he was about 19, Taryn was 16.  Misty was Garrison's girlfriend but even then we knew she was going to be a permanent edition to our family.  Taryn always considered her a sister.  This was my little family.  My kids.  The reasons I lived and breathed.  It's still like that except now there's Kate who married Christian, Killian their little boy, then Garrison's two sons, Jaxx and Dean.  I consider Adrian my son too.  When he gets married again and has children they will be my grandchildren too, they'll be Kayan's brothers and sisters.  

Some of the facial expressions on Taryn's face are so cute.  People tell me we look alike, which was always such a compliment to me because I always considered her one of the most beautiful girls I'd ever seen.  She was just Taryn and didn't think of herself that way.  Other people did though.  Every mama thinks her kids are pretty.  I've always been proud of mine.  They are such amazing people.  They are kind and compassionate.  Taryn was so worried about minorities and very outspoken for their needs. Her husband was Hispanic/Black and that was a huge part of her life.  Her best friend Nikki is Hispanic too so that played an enormous part in her thought process.  

Taryn was fiercely protective of Christian.  He was her baby from the time he was born.  She even fed him his bottles and sang to him when he was a baby.  She sang that song from Barney the purple dinosaur, Skittla Rinky Dinky Dink, Skittla Rinky Doo, I love you... we have that on tape and it's precious, her singing to him.  She was close to Garrison too and never let anyone say anything bad about him.  They fought like siblings do but no one else could rag on Garrison, just her.  LOL  When Taryn was little Garrison played with her so cute.  She had this little shopping cart we bought her so she could learn how to walk and Garrison would plop her in the cart and run around the house pushing her in it.  She would laugh and squeal with delight when he did that.  He loved his little sister.  I was so sick when I was pregnant with Christian that often times Garrison would help me feed Taryn because being around food made me so nauseous.  He was only 4 years old but could make a burrito in the microwave for himself and feed Taryn for me when I needed him to.   Garrison was and always has been such an amazing little boy.  He took care of us and still does.  

This picture is so funny. Taryn didn't like it much because the photographer extended our pointer fingers to look more like guns and she always said it looked like we all had ET fingers.  hahahaha  I never asked the photographer to do that but it's done now so she laughed at it a lot.  Misty looks board to tears, I look silly and Taryn looks a little confident and fierce.  Out of the three of us she's the one with the "Don't mess with me" look on her face.  Her signature flip flops and she always wore a wrist band at that time.  There was a reason for that.  She was a cutter for a time.  I didn't know she was suffering so badly when her father and I divorced.  Cutting your skin is something young kids were doing to feel physical pain when they were in emotional pain.  When I first saw what she was doing I felt so horrible that I didn't know how bad it was for her.  She ended up getting a tattoo to cover the scars on her wrist.  It was a tattoo of a beautiful lotus flower with an ohm inside it.  She had found her "peace" and I thought it was a beautiful message to herself when she did that.  I vowed to spend more time with her once I realized she was in such emotional pain over what happened to our family.  She was okay after that.  

We don't always know what our kids are going through and the depth of what they feel.  Sometimes we are the last ones to know they hurt, especially when they are teenagers.  All of mine went through the tough stuff.  Christian did too.  He would go on these long fasts and not eat anything.  He and I talked about it some years later and he admitted to me he was trying to end it all by not eating.  I always thought I was close to my kids but even with the closeness we had I still missed important stuff and most parents do.  We can't know everything they feel because there will come a time when they stop sharing that information with us.  

Garrison got reckless.  He drove like a maniac and took insane chances driving and hanging out with his friends.  I prayed constantly for guardian angels to watch over my children during that time in their lives.  I'm grateful they all made it through their teenage years without a serious injury.  I have nothing but admiration for parents who are going through raising teens.  It's hard!  We do the best we can and even when we do that it's sometimes not enough.  

I told them I loved them all the time.  We do that a lot.  We say those words to each other every time we talk on the phone, say goodbye in person or text.  It's real important that we all know how we feel about each other.  We did that even before we lost Taryn but especially now since we did.  I wish I got to see them more and we do the best we can to hang out and have fun together.  My family is and always will be the greatest accomplishment of my life here.  The reason I'm breathing and learning still.  Without them there's not much point really.  Family is everything.  Everything to me. 

Joy and Pain

Last night I had dinner over at my oldest son's house and his son Dean, my grandson, was being so funny we were all laughing and smiling at him.  His personality is coming out more and more and he rolls his eyes at us constantly.  He has funny reactions to things and is so quick witted that I just know he's going to be a handful when he's older.  He figures things out.  He's got this natural ability to be funny and entertain people.  He lights up a room when he goes into one and I just see so much of my dad in him.  My father was funny.  He was always dancing with waitresses and whistling everywhere he went. 

He's also very affectionate and gives hugs and kisses to everyone all the time.  I love how he's like that.  Killian is too.  Jaxx is smiling at you when you smile at him now, he's three months old.  Children are so eager to love.  They are just born with the ability to give of themselves and it amazes me.  I wish adults never lost that ability.  Most of our problems in life come from people who lost their ability to love others or even themselves.  They turn cranky, rude and inconsiderate and seem to live to ruin someone's day.  Every now and then I come across someone like that.  Not all the time but sometimes.  I have to wonder what their life is like.  If they can be short and testy with me, what is their family or home life like?  Is there any joy in their world at all?

Nasty mean people are everywhere it seems.  So are the nice ones and thank goodness the good and happy people outweigh the bad for the most part.  

It was hard for Taryn to be in a good mood because she was always in pain from her tumor surgeries.  Her body never really bounced back from that.  She healed of course but when you have parts of your ribs missing and big scars all the way across your stomach and back it's not much fun most of the time.  I did my best to be patient with her.  Even I didn't understand what she went through.

She told me something on the last trip I went to see her that really opened my eyes to her constant pain.  In an effort to try and not take any pain meds at all while she was pregnant, she and Adrian would do sit ups and he would hold her ankles and she'd do back exercises.  He's a personal trainer so he knew how to help strengthen her back a bit so the pain wasn't as intense.  She told me she'd be crying so hard her nose would run and she'd snort snot out of her nose and when she said that it was as if I pictured her struggle.  My eyes filled with tears and I suddenly knew that I knew nothing of her pain.  I'd never done that.  Never.  Not even when I was in labor and having a painful birth.  I never cried so hard that the snot would snort out my nose.  

I felt so sorry.  I wanted to help her but she was helping me.  She was the teacher so much of the time.  What she endured and went through was so amazing to me.  She wasn't an opiate addict although doctors put those pills in her hands every surgery she had.  She'd carefully dole them out and wait until she couldn't stand the pain any longer before she'd take one.  I had no idea she was doing that.  All I saw was the sour moods and the impatient sighs.

She had this childlike love and excitement for things, just like a little kid.  The patience of Job.  She and Dean, Killian and Jaxx have a lot in common.  Her love for things was pure and sweet just like I see in my grandsons.  Even through the pain she felt, her joy at the simple things was there, always.  I admire that.  

Glitter

This is the urn Taryn is in.  We had her cremated together with the baby.  This urn isn't available anymore.  I had a friend want to get one a year ago and when I looked it up I found out it's no longer made.  It's hand blown glass and when I saw it I knew that is what Taryn needed to be inside of.  It's one of the most beautiful things I'd ever seen and unique.  One of a kind.  Just like her.  When you look at it, it sparkles like glitter.  So did she.  I found this quote the other day that describes my experience with glitter perfectly.  I used to do a lot of crafts and used glitter from time to time.  It was always so hard to get cleaned up and I could never get it all.  Like grief.  It's always there.  In some hidden corner of your life.  Lurking.  That tiny sparkle of truth that never goes away.  

I'll have good days.  Days when I feel happy and even smile.  I'll have bad days when nothing goes right and everything feels wrong.  That used to happen even before I lost her though.   Some of the worst times are the times when I see something I would have told her about or go somewhere she would have loved.  That just means that person is so deeply inside your soul that all your experiences include them even when they're gone.  I experienced that after divorce too.  Just because you don't live with someone anymore doesn't mean you don't share a past.  It takes a while for that to go away even when you want it to.  

I think we always remember someone in a way that makes them perfect and immortal.  Their faults melt away and all that's left is this beautiful glitter that sparkles and sticks to everything.  Maybe that is the kindness that our minds give us.  The remembering of everything good and beautiful.

I like that.

Voices of Truth

In the movie Grand Canyon, Steve Martin plays a movie producer.  He's talking to his friend about his friend's problems and says this.

“You know what your problem is, it's that you haven't seen enough movies - all of life's riddles are answered in the movies."
Steve Martin”

I think he's right.  I've gotten some of my most profound thoughts from the movies I've watched.  Grand Canyon is full of them.  I also watched another movie last night that made me stop and think hard.  It's called About Time.  It's about this family of men who are able to go back in time to change things a little so their lives work out a bit better.  The guy in the movie, Tim, ends up falling for this woman and builds a life with her.  A close to perfect life.  Whenever he messes up really bad he goes back and fixes it.  After a while he stops fixing it.  He lets the lessons from the problems he has teach him and everyone else.  

It wasn't until the end of the movie that I started to cry though.  His father dies.  He wants to go back and fix it but he can't.  Even being able to go back and see him after his father dies becomes impossible because he and his wife have another child and if he goes back and tries to see his father in the past before the baby is born he'll have a different child when he returns to the present.  The moment of conception of the baby would change if he does a "do-over" and relives the life following his visit to his father.  So he has to really say goodbye to his dad.

I thought of Taryn.  What would I do if I could go back and be with her?  What event would I choose to go back to?  Without a doubt it would be Christian's Wedding.  I can't remember a day in my life when I was happier than that one day.  All my children were beautiful, healthy, happy and having the time of their lives.  That was the best day of my life and she was there.  I would feel total bliss watching her dance with her brothers, laugh and be silly and just revel in the joy of being a family together.  That whole day was perfect.  From start to finish.  Everyone looked beautiful, smiled and laughed and had so much fun together.  That's when I started to cry.  Sob really. 

Was it cruel to watch a movie like that?  To know that the message of this particular story was to make the most of every day you live?  Find the joy in even the hard things and don't wait for a do over, do it right the first time!  I love that message.  I wanted my kids to watch it.  My boys.  Christian and Garrison.  I wanted to call them both and probably confuse them by saying make it count.  Make every moment with your kids count.  Don't wait.  Don't wait to lose one of them and don't live with any regrets.  

At Christian's wedding we did it right.  We made every minute count and it showed.  Everyone had fun and we didn't want the day to end.  We danced and talked and laughed together.  It was magical.  THAT is my day, my moment.  There are other times in my life when I was happy too but when it all comes together for everyone at the same time it's kind of epic.  

Steve Martin was right.  People make movies about things that matter.  There's always that one message, that one line or thought that makes the entire experience make sense and change you somehow.  I love that.  I love coming away with a little more to add to my soul.  One more thing figured out.  I should have been a movie producer.  I should have been a lot of things.  That's actually another movie line from the movie Little Women.  Jo says it to the man who is telling her she should have been a man because her opinions are so strong and amazing.  She looks at him sweetly and smiles, "I should have been a lot of things".  She was actually more than she realized.  Fredrick taught her that.  To find her voice and speak her truth.  

That's the deepest hope of my heart for my children.  That they will find their voices and speak their truths.  No fear or regrets.  I was always so proud of Taryn for that reason.  She did that when she spoke.  She spoke the truth.  Giving my children their voices to speak their truths, is the best I could give them.  Doesn't every mother who loves her child want that for them?  I hope so. 

Refrigerator List

I always had this list of sayings on my refrigerator for my three kids to read.  I hoped that it would make a difference in the way they thought about life.  These little thoughts are magic.  They get into your brain and stay there like positive little smiles.  The idea came from a story I read many years ago about an old woman who was 100 years old.  On her birthday she was asked want was the secret to her happiness and long life.  These are her words.  So I copied them and put them on my fridge. If it worked for her maybe it would work for us too.  I hoped it was something the kids would come to believe in.  They turned out to be amazing people.  Maybe one or two of these little thoughts helped make that happen.

Life isn’t fair, but it’s still good.

When in Doubt, just take the next small step.

Life is too short to waste time hating anyone.

Your job won’t take care of you when you’re sick. Your friends and parents will. Stay in touch.

Pay off your credit cards every month.

You don’t have to win every argument, agree to disagree.

Cry with someone. it’s more healing than crying alone.

It’s okay to get angry with God. He can take it.

Save for retirement starting with your first paycheck.

When it comes to chocolate, resistance is futile.

Make peace with your past so it won’t screw up the present.

It’s okay to let your children see you cry.

Don’t compare your life to others. You have no idea what their journey is all about.

If a relationship has to be a secret, you shouldn’t be in it.

Everything can change in the blink of an eye, but don’t worry; God never blinks.

Take a deep breath, it calms the mind.

Get rid of anything that isn’t useful, beautiful or joyful.

Whatever doesn’t kill you really does make you stronger.

It’s never too late to have a happy childhood, but the second one is up to you and

no one else.

When it comes to going after what you love in life, don’t take no for an answer.

Burn the candle, use the nice sheets, wear the fancy lingerie, don’t save it for a special occasion, today is special.

Over prepare, then go with the flow.

Be eccentric now. Don’t wait for old age to wear purple.

The most important sex organ is the brain.

No one is in charge of your happiness but you.

Frame every so called disaster with these words “In five years, will this matter?”

Always choose life.

Forgive everyone everything.

What other people think of you is none of your business.

Time heals almost everything. Give time time.

However good or bad a situation is, it will change.

Don’t take yourself so seriously. No one else does.

Believe in miracles.

God loves you because of who God is, not because of anything you did or didn’t do.

Don’t audit life. Show up and make the most of now.

Growing old beats the alternative, dying young.

Your children only get one childhood.

All the truly matters in the end is that you loved.

Get outside every day. Miracles are waiting everywhere.

If we all threw our problems in a pile and saw everyone else’s we’d grab ours back.

Envy is a waste of time. You already have all you need.

The best is yet to come.

No matter how you feel, get up, dressup and show up.

Yield.

Life isn’t tied with a bow but it’s still a gift.

Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass... it’s about learning to dance in the rain.

Laughter and shoes

I don't have very many pictures of the two of us together.  I think we stop doing that when our kids get older.  It wasn't until Taryn died that I realized just how few videos I had of her as an adult.  I had so much of all the kids as babies but it tapers off and as they get older it's not as "cute" to take video and pictures all the time.  Plus the business of raising them gets in the way of all the photo shoots.  I regret that now.  I treasure any videos of her voice and her laughter.  Here's the link to the video of her laughing... 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kODBMLDNJqc

Shortly after she died I was talking to Adrian, her husband, and he was saying he needed to hear her laugh.  I found a video of her and a little puppy where she was laughing and I could feel the anxiety drain out of him when he heard it.  Like water to a stranded man in the desert.  Just that angelic sound of her laughter was all the medicine he needed.  She was so graceful too.  When she danced or walked or just floated through a room she was effortlessly elegant.  I admired her ability to do that even in sweat pants and and an over sized t-shirt.  The girl had class. 

I'm not sure where all that came from.  She was always a "girly girl" when she was little.  She liked wearing jewelry.  She matched her colors and loved to do up her hair.  She wore earrings and a necklace almost everywhere, unlike me who hardly ever wears jewelry.  My father owned a jewelry store when I was growing up so it just didn't stick.  He also owned a bakery for a short time and to this day I don't eat donuts either!  LOL  I wish he'd owned a pizza parlor so I could avoid THAT too hahaha.

Not Taryn though.  She loved glitter and sparkly stuff.  She had these long thin elegant little feet and as she grew her feet were always long.  She ended up with size 11 and that's big for a girl.  Not for a super model though.  I believe Elle McPhearson has size 12 feet.  Uma Thurman is size 11, so she's in good company.  Whenever I could find cool shoes in a size 11 I always bought them for her.  These shoes up there in that picture were one of my favorite finds.  These boots too.

Problem was those sparkle jelly shoes all the little girls loved to wear when she was about 8 or 9 years old.  Her adult size feet were too big for them and they didn't make them for adults.  She would look at them at the store and try and squeeze her feet into them and it just didn't work.  She'd get this sad little look on her face and I wanted to find some sparkle shoes for her.  This was before the Internet and being able to order special things online.  We were at the mercy of what PayLess Shoe Source carried.

That's one of the reasons she loved flip flops.  A size large flip flop always fit her feet.  She she wore them all the time.  If anyone had a pair she liked she'd steal them too.  LOL  My niece Heather, who is married to my sister's son Patricke, got to be tremendous friends with Taryn.  She called her, her baby cousin.  Heather has pretty small feet but would always buy large size flip flops because of how comfy they are.  Taryn would sneak them into her over night bag and take them home after spending a weekend or just wear them and forget she had them on.  Whenever Heather would come to our place to visit she'd find them in Taryn's closet and tease her about it.  Taryn would shrug her shoulders and pretend she didn't know how they got there.  

She had the best sense of humor.  That's the one thing I miss the most is laughing with her.  Being silly.  She didn't care what people thought and said what was on her mind and did what she felt was right.  She truly did dance like no one was watching.  She was real, honest and didn't care what anyone else thought.  That quality is so rare in the world.