Happy Birthday, Libby

Today is Libby's birthday.  She is having fun for the two hours that Peter is in pre-school while Anna is in school and it is just Libby and Eli time.  Happy birthday, dear Libby!  I am happy for you.

I remember times like that when for some reason I could spend a few delicious hours alone with one child.  What treasured memories.  Some of the children didn't get that as often as did Norman, the first, or Michael, the last.  But eventually you all did.

I hope that in spite of our large family I was able to give  focused time, love and  attention to each one of you, my children.  I would like to be able to give it to each one of you, my new daughters and my grandchildren.  I have been blessed by your love for me and it has been the greatest joy of my life to be your mother and grandmother.  I hope I have enough time on this earth to clearly inform and demonstrate to each of you, singly, not as a mass of people with the same last name, that it does not matter to me whether you are short, tall, fat, skinny, blonde, brown, red, trumpet players or book readers, dancers or singers or cooks or runners or sitters or serious or cheerful or studious or playful, or if you like bright colors in your rooms, or earth tones, if you are a designer label Ames or a thrift store junkie, if you are an engineer, or an artist, a teacher, if you are tidy or unorganized, if you tie your shoes or not, if your hair is long or short, your pants baggy or tight, you play LaCrosse or Scrabble, you like Classical or Jazz or Country or Pop, WHATEVER ....   none of that makes a bit of difference to my love for you.  You are mine.  You are my children and my children's children.  I accept you as a great big bouquet of many colors and types of flowers, and you are all beautiful to me.  I love you each, singly, as if I picked one of those flowers and gazed upon its differences and its beauties and sniffed its fragrance and felt my heart swell up with love and gratitude. Always know that.  Believe it.  Say to yourself your whole life long:  my mother, my mother in law, my grandmother ... knew me, accepted me and loved me just because I am who I am.
"Grans"