Come join in the fun!
I accepted this challenge because I am always saying I’m an optimist, but end up sounding more like a pessimist half the time! Maybe this will change my vocabulary!
From the Top of the Ferris Wheel
The Himalaya!
Another view from the top
I am late, yet again on my entry for Writer’s Wednesday Workshop with Mama Kat.
I chose prompt #4 “Describe the moment you discovered your mom was more than just a mom,” although I’m sure I’m not following the rules or the actual prompt (as usual.)
I’ll add in another prompt, “How did you get your name?”
Well it was because Beatles decided to put out a little hit called “Michelle” just a few years before I was born (also why so many women about my age are named Michelle.) They had wanted to name me Kenneth, but for obvious reasons that had to wait for my brother.
My mom is always smiling. Her smile is so infectious you can’t help but smile back. People gravitate towards it even though she doesn’t know it.
She was always a “working mom.” She had to go back to work six weeks after I was born, so I knew that every minute I got to spend with her was precious. It never bothered me though. My friends had moms who stayed home with them, but I couldn’t imagine life any other way. Mom still took us to do fun things, made homemade cookies and play dough, sewed me Barbie dresses, (HOW did she do it?)
Then, in 1976 my mother discovered she was pregnant with my brother. About three months later my dad found out he had inoperable cancer and had six months to live. Mom never stopped during the pregnancy to sit down. She scraped and painted the house, made curtains, took care of my sick father. Seeing how much she did for him at that time made me realize how special she was and how much she loved him. He died in December 1977 at the age of 32.
Mom decided we’d visit her parents in the Canal Zone. She got a job with the Dept. of Defense and so we moved to Panama. After my brother and I left home, Mom continued her career helping US soldiers get their degrees and moved all around the world.
Mom and a soldier in Kosovo
So, when did I realize my mom was more than just a mom?
I guess I’ve always known that she is a truly amazing woman.
The topic?
Climate Change
My family thinks about climate change daily. I’m not kidding. My kids worry about it constantly.
We have been trying to live a “greener” life to make changes in our own little ways. But is it enough?
People brush off the issue, we all want to pretend like nothing is going on.
But- look at the changes happening in our short little span on this beautiful planet…
I have personally seen coral reefs that were once gorgeous when I was a child, almost completely disappear or turn into brown deserts due to slight temperature changes in the water. Oceans are rising at a rate three times faster than the historical norm!
(Ask any fisherman, surfer, scuba diver and they will tell you it is true.)
My grandfather (now in his 90’s) tells us how he used to ice skate on the pond in his hometown. Now it’s rare to see snow there at all.
Storms have intensified. Natural disasters are now a yearly event. Water shortages abound, and as a result disease and famine spread.
The ice caps, glaciers, and mountain snows are disappearing. 2008 was the 8th hottest year in recorded history according to the NOAA. Polar bears are drowning because the ice is so thin in places.
Even if you don’t believe in Global Warming or that Climate Change is not occurring, how could changing your own little world hurt?
Hopefully we can make a difference if we TRY.
What have we got to lose?
Our futures,
Our lives,
Our planet.
In Panama we had rainy and dry seasons. In the rainy season it would rain every day, but at an almost set time so you knew the sun would come out eventually. As a kid it was great. We would don our bathing suits and cover the drains with palm fronds so that the street would flood, like a mini-swimming pool. (No, there was virtually no traffic.) The frogs would lay their eggs in multitude and you could scoop them up and fill tanks and bowls in the house to produce so many little tadpoles and baby frogs. The only downside was riding your bike home from the pool and having the skies open up on you. You could grab a palm frond or other giant leaves to sub as an umbrella. It wasn’t unusual to come home drenched to the bone, but the rain was so warm and happy that it was like taking a shower from heaven.
Now this year in Arkansas we’ve already gone 12 inches over our usual annual rainfall. It has rained for several days straight again and the sun is not peeking out anywhere, thus the problem. I have to have me some sun.
Where are you, Mr. Sun?
My roof is dripping in the bathroom again. And the roof guy told me I don’t need a new one? I’d get up there and see where it’s leaking if it would stop raining long enough.
My yard looks like a mud pit again.
I guess I shouldn’t complain. The westcoast is in major drought. If I could only send it that way for a day or two…
