Where has the time gone?

I have tried to get this blog in English instead for Arabic for a few months now. Today I suceeded.. This is way over due...

2011 has brought a new

understanding to me of "TIME"

I will start off by saying we lost our cousin

Meghan Patrizi on her 30th Birthday in February to cancer. It was a prayerful 9 months and I feel blessed to have been able to spend the last few days with her and her family whom I adore. After the service they let free, a box of gorgeous Butterflies and read this poem:

"A butterfly lights beside us

like a sunbeam,

and for a brief moment

it's beauty and glory

belong to our world.

But, then it flies on again.

And although we wished

it could have stayed,

We feel blessed

to have seen it."

It was a wonderful way to celebrate such an amazing young woman.

Then I have had another life change... We had to put my 83 year old Mother in a Nursing home. You have heard people talk about how hard it is to care for the elderly and it is all very true. As I sat there in that hall all by myself, looking at my Momma as she stares into space, I realized she was no longer the lady that raised me. The one that taught me how to use a camera and take pictures... The woman who was adamant about never saying the word "hate", now uses it often. She only answers questions now, her soul was empty. A lady who in any given moment could have told you the batting average of every single Astros player until last year. Now she doesn't even care who the Astros are. I miss my Momma already ~ even before she is physically gone and that's terribly hard.

I value myself as usually being a really upbeat positve person, but there comes times in your circle of life where there is a time for love, a time for life and a time to cry and a time for death.

I really dislike those last two.

I sat at the pool yesterday with a Flat Stanley I had dressed like an Arab for a first grader in California. Now he is Ali bin Ali Abduellah Stanley... We watched a 3 year old boy jump into the cold water and squeel a shrill little squeel and jump up and down a few times waving his arms in the air, then he said "Momma, Momma, watch me!! watch me!!!" I thought of all those times I watched Nicholas jump in the pool and put his face in the water and I would clap and be so proud. And today I sat there alone with a paperdoll dressed in a thobe.

Where has the time gone?

30 something years ago David Patrizi was a fabulous Rugby player, he was honored this past month and inducted into the Rugby Hall of Fame at his college. Nicholas and Amanda were able to attend with David's parents and we were all proud of him too.

Where has time gone?

To some of the new angels and stars in heaven it has gone way too soon, to my Momma it has been a long road, to that little boy in the water he has a lot of jumps to make and that new Momma has so many praises to say... I am still very proud of Nicholas but he doesn't ask me to watch anymore. I miss that.

Where has time gone?

I met a cute gal at lunch this week and although I am not a fan of tatoos, I LOVED hers. On the inside of her arm it read "live now".

I am trying my best to do that.

But sometimes we all need to be reminded.

I am not going to get a tat,

but do remind me now and then when things get in the way and we forget.

"LIVE NOW!!!"