Parenting Never Ends

I remember when I was only ten years old, and I always knew I would become a mother one day. I knew I would adopt two children and have one of my own. Well, I can now say that vision did come true. I look back now on life and realize I knew that I reflected on it at a young age. Over the years you get use to diapers, time schedules, doctor appointments, and then it becomes school events to look forward to. If it is not football for the boys, dolls, baton and dance for the girl, then you have something else to look forward to. I look back on those years and thought to myself that one day my children would grow up and leave home and mom would be mom wondering what to do next. At least that was the idea in life. However, my son had to have a family, a heart attack, eight stents, and bypass surgery. I look on his life and always wondered, if I was needed and realized he could not do without his mom. I always worried about losing him to a heart attack that he would never come back from. A Strange thing happened... I had a police officer come to my door and tell me my son was dead. I was shocked because I said to police officer,"no my son is in his room, and he said, "no mame... this is your Georgia son". He was hit by a train and his car flipped 5 times. I remember that feeling of shock. He was 40 years old, and I look back about how it was a miracle his little girls were not in the automobile at the time. Yes, he was my adopted son, but my heart says I will never see him as anything but my son of whom I shall always be proud I adopted.

Then, I have my own natural daughter that I have battled all kinds of illness with her and many surgeries, and I think to myself, when does a mother quit being a mother? I realize there is no end to a mom's love and devotion. A mom will do what she has to for her kids. I guess you can say as long as mom is alive, then her work is never done. I say that as a mother, but then there is the father. They also feel as I do. A father's love never stops, and he is also willing to do what he must in order to help his kids and family.

I now reflect on my own mother and father and realize that when I was hurt or in pain, then my mother held my hand, and was there for me when I was sick. All seemed better for me with her gentle touch. I look on my life and I see my mom in me. I can never give up my children, and my son went to be with the father above. It does not end my love, but I am stronger for having loved him. I guess you can say that a good parent will make their children independent as possible, but always stand up for them no matter how old they are. or what you must help them face. There were many times that I saved his life. He was once hit by an arm of a crane as it was carried down the road by a trucker. My son was thrown about 20 feet and hit the mailbox with his head. He was mowing the ditch and not in the road, when it happened. The paramedics told me that had I not been there to give him first aid and stop his bleeding he would not have survived. It took them 30 minutes to get to him. That was only one incident out of many that as his mom had to step in and be there for him. In fact, the strangest thing was a phone call I got from him the night before he was hit by the train. We talked about all the events in his life, and I wondered if he had sensed something would happen to him. I will never know for sure, because those events are strange and do happen. The hardest thing I had to deal with was being unable to get his children from another state in which he was living. I spent 27 hours and many hours beyond working toward that goal, but somehow I felt like the state was not giving them up for anything. It hurt because I know they probably were removed from all family, and adopted by a professional person that wanted them. I suspect they had some power over things due to their possibly having money, but I will never know for sure, nor will I ever see them again. I am left with my prayers, and that is all I have left of them but my memories and love.

I say to mothers and fathers that the most important thing in life is to love your children for better or worse days, for one day hopefully they will love you as much as you loved them. Maybe your memory will go on in their own families. For life goes on from generation to generation, and the legacy is that of which you make it.

Once we send our children to school, and we realize they moved away, then along comes our pets that we find to love us. They have unconditional love inside of them. During the process of meeting up with a feral cat no one wanted, then I find a few years back this Chiweenie that has taught me a lot of lessons on how he manipulates things and people in the house. One brilliant thing I did was to teach him some expressive language to replace the barking that was driving me up the wall. I already realized as a teacher that he had a large receptive vocabulary. I wrote an article about the receptive language of my Chi Chi. He has been followed by many people on HubPages and also on Pinterest. He has had approximately 12,000 plus readers already. Many readers have contacted me to discuss their babies as well. Strange how most of them have the same experiences with them. I said parenting never is over, when you let your kids grow up and you take in the loving little critters like pups, birds, cats, and other animals.