A story & poem that I just have to share with everyone

I searched the internet but was unable to find the author of this. Earliest dates it appears is in 2009, where it has been posted from someone who forwarded it ... Glad to see it still been circulated and remembered.

Recently, I overheard a mother and daughter in their last moments together at the airport.. They had announced the departure. Standing near the security gate, they hugged, and the mother said, 'I love you, and I pray you enough.'

The daughter replied, 'Mom, our life together has been more than enough. Your love is all I ever needed. I pray you enough, too, Mom.'

They kissed, and the daughter left. The mother walked over to the window where I was seated. Standing there, I could see she wanted and needed to cry. I tried not to intrude on her privacy, but she welcomed me in by asking, 'Did you ever say good-bye to someone knowing it would be forever?'

Yes, I have,' I replied. 'Forgive me for asking, but why is this a forever good-bye?'

'Well...I'm not as young as I once was, she lives so far away & has her own busy life. I have some challenges ahead, and the reality is - her next trip back will be for my funeral,' she said.

'When you were saying good-bye, I heard you say, 'I pray you enough.' May I ask what that means?'

She began to smile. 'That's a prayer that has been handed down from other generations. My parents use to say it to everyone..' She paused a moment and looked up as if trying to remember it in detail, and she smiled even more. 'When we said, 'I pray you enough,' we wanted the other person to have a life filled with just enough good things to sustain them.'

Then, turning toward me, she shared the following as if she were reciting it from memory.

I pray you enough sun to keep your attitude bright no matter how gray the day may appear..

I pray you enough rain to appreciate the sun even more.

I pray you enough happiness to keep your spirit alive and everlasting.

I pray you enough pain so that even the smallest of joys in life may appear bigger.

I pray you enough gain to satisfy your wanting.

I pray you enough loss to appreciate all that you possess.

I pray you enough hellos to get you through the final good-bye.

Then, she began to cry, and walked away.
 

2011 videos

I finally pulled a bunch of videos from our small camera, and discovered ones that started almost a year ago!  Here are a few:

Kids on Daddy's shoulders

Charly playing soccer

Playschool finale - Charly on tampoline

Playschool finale - medals handed out

playschool finale - group photo op

At Vernon - Sarah feeds goat

Vernon wind storm   (long, not too exciting unless you were there!)

Drumheller waterpark

drumheller waterpark 2

Kids playing on the trampoline

Phoenix Zoo - giant turtle (This was one of the first animals we encountered at the zoo)

Phoenix Zoo - cheetah and then panther

Phoenix Zoo - feeding GIRAFFE

2011 12 trip to Phoenix

Go to 2011 12 trip to Phoenix, a set on Flickr, to see all photos!

Dec 10-17, a great break away from winter. Stayed with Jeff's mom and had a great trip!  Celebrated Sarah's birthday there, went to Wickenburg, AZ to stroll around, went shopping at Macy's, JC Penney, and other stores, went to a wonderful playground at Anthem Community Park, and then completed the visit with a trip to the Phoenix Zoo: Wildlife World.

2011 11 Nov

Go to 2011 11 Nov, a set on Flickr, to see all photos!

Photos - Charly's 5th birthday parties, Remembrance day wreath, snowman, beginning of Christmas season.

October 2011

October - started by getting the new tenants into their places. Then Jeff went to Minneapolis for a few days.

Finished off another round of swimming lessons for the kids.  Sarah was just repeatng the smae class because she can't advance until she is 3 yrs old. Charly redid Sea Otters and passed it.  He is becoming more and more comfortable in the water. The Dawe has great instructors.

The weather cooperated so we were able to fit in a few more playground trips. Spend one glorious afternoon at Bower Ponds playground, where we went for an hour but ended up staying for almost 5.  The kids continued to use the trampoline outside as long as they could, until finally it was put away for the winter.

Charly switched from gymnastics on Wed afternoon (where he was all alone) to Monday afternoons with 5 other kids.  He didn't like having to wait his turn again, but is enjoying being with the other kids. I am glad for the change too since Sarah's lessons are Wed morning, and 2 trips to the Collicutt in one day is just too much for me.

Charly's friend Koen turned 5 so we went to his birthday party. That was the only excitement we had for Thanksgiving - we were all thankfully to just stay home together.

We got our flu shots soon after they were available.  There was a flu making its rounds here but we managed to avoid it :)

Fri Oct 28 - took the kids and Charly's friend Koen to the Clagary's zoo "Boo-at-the-Zoo" event. Started at 6:30pm, there were displays and activities set up throughout the zoo. Fortunately the rain held off and we weren't too cold until after 8:30pm.  I was expecting to see more animals, being at the zoo, but there were enough things to do that we weren't bored. 

Mon Oct 31 - Charly wore his costume to school. We had a nearly supper and then Papa Doug took the kids out trick-or-treating for just under an hour. Lots of fun and excitement there.  Then we went to the Collicutt Centre for their halloween event. They had free swimming and skating (which we skipped), and 3 of the field houses were open and set up with at least 7 bouncy castle-things. One field was meant for 0-4 year olds, second for 3-7 year olds, and the other was more sports oriented for the older kids.  My kids played and played and played.  They were so tired be the time we left. Charly burst into tears because he didn't want the fun to end, LOL!

Photos on Flickr
videos:
Trick or Treating
Halloween fun at the Collicutt
Slide at the Collicutt

September 2011

Well, Autumn has arrived, to the dismay of most people.  For me, I love Autumn.  I love that the variety of weather, the air is cripser, and each ray of warm sunshine becomes more and more precious as the cold winter starts approaching. I love the leaves turning colours and falling down.  If only we could skip winter and just go to spring after Autumn :)  This September was quite wonderful in weather, and we had some of the hottest, dries weeks for the year in it.


September of course brings school starting.  And this year Charly entered Kindergarten, full of smiles and excitement. He has a very experienced teacher so he is in good hands. There are more girls in his class than boys, but so far it looks like they will all get along okay. There is a set of triple girls to keep us all trying to figure out who is who. Charly goes every morning from 8:38-11:24, and gets about every second Friday off for one reason or another.  So far the mornings have gon well, in terms of getting up and out the door.  The school is only a few minutes drive away,  but the time getting everyone ready and into the van seems to take lots of time, and it will get worse once winter hits.  The first week I had to wake the kids up each morning - Sarah was not impressed by this at all. but they quickly adapted.

After I drop Charly off at Kindergarten, then I take Sarah with me, running errands, grocery shopping, and we try to be back at the school early enough to play at the playground for a little while before Charly is done.  So nice to shop with only one child :)

Sarah took about a week to accept the new schedule, and is now okay with leaving Charly in his class and going off with Mom for the morning.  She's had a rough month, between scheduling, and medical issues.  In august she had a bowel setback, had to essentially restart her at full Lax-A-Day strength again.  September was up and down trying to slowly reduce that, but so far she's back on track.  She's had numerous doctor visists and they are all satisfied with how she is doing.  Toward the end of the month Sarah caught a head-cold and shared it with the rest of us.  How nice. 

Second week of September, Gymnastics started for the kids on Wednesdays.  Sarah goes while Charly is in kindergarten.  It is a parented course so we can finally attend :)  Even though Sarah is the outgoing and athletic child, for the first 2 classes she only showed her stubborn and independent side, refusing to do what the rest of the kids were doing.  The third week she changed her mind, and with more sleep the night before, had a great class.  Charly goes in the afternoon while Sarah and I watch or wander around.  turns out that only one person (Charly) signed up for his class, but it is still being run anyways.  So Charly gets lots of one-on-one time with his coach (same coach as from last year), and since he isn't waiting for other kids to have their turns, he is getting lots of exercise during the class!

The last week of September we added in swimming lessons for both kids, Tues & Thurs just before supper.  I get to drop Charly off with his instructor and then take Sarah to her parent & tot class. We all get a work out and are hungry and tired when we get home!

During this month, we had numerouse visitors - STR & Helen, Ellen, John & Margaret, and my friend Kim. It was so wonderful to see everyone! 

My husband's birthday slipped by quietly. Everyone, including me and the kids were out of town.  We had gone to Calgary for Sarah's doctor checkup (all okay) and didn't get home until after supper.  We'll have to make sure next year's party is extra special (he he he)!

I took the kids to the Lacombe corn maze. So many things to do there - slides, swings, bouncy pillow, animals to feed, tractor pulled train, etc so we never did get a chance to walk through the maze.  But since we had done Bowden's maze it was okay with us.  Kids had lots of fun!

Of course with school back in, all the kidsget together and share their germs.  So the month ended with us fighting off bugs. Sarah had a fever for one day, Charly for the next with Daddy also down that day.  I did my best, suffered through lots of sinus pain and congestion.  Daddy and Charly recovered quite quickly (not normal) while Sarah and I continued to fight off the cold symptoms.  Thank goodness for Kleenex and Tylenol!

And through the illnesses I struggled to keep the usual day to tday stuff going, plus 2 of our renters had given notice to vacate at the end of Spetember, so I was running around showing prospective tenants the places, arranging cleaning, etc. The townhouse was rented out to a nice couple so hopefully they will treat the place with normal descency.

October photos (Flickr)
Video Bouncy pillow 1
Video Bouncy pillow 2

Aug 2011

August was another action-packed month.  We went lots of places and visited with lots of people.  A good month!  I'm not sure I'll go into details about everything - I'd be typing all day LOL!  Charly finished off summer school and I did what I could to take the kids to places throughout Central Alberta.


I took the kids to Calaway Park.  I had never been there before so didn't know what to really expect.  We had a blast! Trains, slides, rides, a ballpit, food - it was hard to leave such a fun place.  But by 5pm a storm was heading our way, so we piled back into the van and headed north.  Just as we hit Stony Trail the storm hit and we had another super exciting ride!
     Wild summer weather proves fatal Calgary


Reunion - Gusek family - yay for family, both new and old :D


Reunion - 20th high school at Cow Lake - so interesting to see what has happened to schoolmates over the years.  Kids had a blast playing with the other kids. Sarah was in her glory, pulling people randomly onto the dance floor to dance with her. Spent a couple hours at Cow Lake beach with Cathleen - so good to catch up with her and everyone else I ran into.


Leighton's birthday - The kids' friend Leighton turned 3 years old. More fun for the kids.

Calgary Zoo - dinosaur park was amazing

Stayed overnight at Diamonds in Calgary after visitng the Calgary Zoo. I am sure for the kids that the visit was more exciting than the zoo.

The next day we headed home, but stopped at the Bowden SunMaze.  Sarah was entranced by the cat and animals. Charly loved navigating us through the sunflower and corn mazes.

Aspen Beach - took the kids to the beach, and they completely wore themselves out playing on the playground (which is half in the water and half on the sand).  I had the chance to step back and observe the kids. Sarah is still as adventurous as always, but over the summer she has gotten a bit taller and stronger.  Charly's confidence on playground equipment has grown with leaps and bounds, and he manages to find someone to play with at each playground we go to.

Food diet - I finally got around to giving Sarah her very first ice cream cone - (soy milk) which she of course loved.  Her bowels suddenly started acting up toward the end of August so I started being very controlling over her food - restricted chocolate, raisins, and anything else that I thought might have caused her setback.  And I started investigating how to eliminate wheat (not all gluten, so she can still have corn, oats, etc) from her diet.  Tried a few recipes with varying degrees of success.

Blackfalds splash park - another sunny day, more play and fun.

Family tree - slowly chipping away at my photo albums. Ancetry.com website has been helpful in growing the family tree, and providing lots of much-needed documentation to my files.  I am alternating between scanning and uploading phots with searching for new relatives - I am so addicted to genealogy!

Flickr photos Aug 2011

Bowden SunMaze, Sarah counting
Kids playing at Koen's
Sarah on tricycle