Generations of Love

Our family survives on wit, inappropriate humor, understanding and forgiveness.  As a mom, I thrive on traditions and memories.  Some of my favorites as a child myself were with my Grandma Taubel.  I have always had inherit love and appreciation for my elders.  And I was also fascinated with their lives and their stories.  The things they had to overcome that seemed like just a foreign idea to me.  Like the great depression, a recession, buying a farm for a few hundred dollars and on and on.  My grandma taught me to live off the land, use everything you have/waste nothing and to make do with what you have.  The kitchen was our home field and she was an amazing coach.  I still to this day fondly can recall the way her hands smelled of onions or the fresh dough creation in the oven.  Or the way her from scratch soup warmed my entire body and soul on the cold winter days. (That's why Pampered Chef truly does resonate with who I am as a person!)  The way her voice sounded when she hummed "Jesus loves me" or how she held her rosary for our almost nightly rosary after supper.

Devout Catholics have many traditions.  And I love carrying on many of those with my own family today.  Using the same advent prayer card she used.  And saying the same sequence of night prayers.  Repeating her little sayings, "Upstairs, downstairs, inside and out" (that's how you brush your teeth, in case you didn't know!)   Her home was always neat and tidy, and actually clean.  She didn't keep her Halloween decorations up all year round like I do (I'm talking about the spider webs I never clean) and she always had a from scratch dessert "in case company stops by" - and company always stopped by! I loved our simple life on the farm.  It was hard work, but it was good work and fulfilling work.  I knew very young that I wanted to be just like her.  As I grew older, I realized I would never be able to be as amazing as she was, but even half the woman she was, would still be pretty impressive.

She died fairly suddenly.  We found her cancer and learned it had spread to every organ in her body.  There was not much they could even suggest and she happily accepted her ticket to judgment day.  We didn't wait long for her ticket to get punched.  From the time we found out until she passed was just a few weeks.  The timing of these things is never easy, and for her and I, would have never been enough time. She and I were just starting to go through her boxes of pictures from when her children were little, writing down her recipes, and journaling her life, to create a memoir of sorts, when she passed.  It's not done, and it never really will be now. But I still treasure what little we have.  One of the very last conversations we had, when she was still of sound mind, was this, and I want to share it with all of you.


"Amber, I don't want you to make the mistake I made.  I want you to enjoy the time with your babies.  All of it, every minute. I don't want you to worry about the mess in the sink or the fingerprints on the window.  That stuff can all wait for later. But once the time is gone, you can never get it back."   The more that I experience in my life, the more I realize that the things that make the biggest impressions on us are not the large grand gestures, but the small loving things.  I can't afford luxurious vacations or world traveling.  Even if I could afford a vehicle and college for all of my children, I don't know that I would anyway.  You learn very little when you are handed something.  You dont get the joy and the life experience from earning it.  Which means you are not able to pass that lesson on and pay it forward as easily either. I want my children to feel the pride in knowing you worked for something.  And even the disappointment when you don't achieve your goals.  The motivation to work harder next time. And the humility to know that it's ok, as long as you were honestly giving your best.  I want to give my children the same memories and traditions that I was given, that's what I want for my children.