GLP-Jukebox

We've had a few days of rain too. Loving it though!


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Coming Friday, May 19th, it is a year since my mom passed away after a battle she could not win. She found the courage to not suffer anymore and to have her life ended. She was a beautiful soul, mother of six, positive till the very last moment and an eye for everyone around her, not only family and friends, but even the ones that were helping her professionally in her last week at home. I will never forget how the doctor asked her if she had said her goodbyes to everyone present and she said: "No, not yet. I still need to say goodbye to Jan." The care taker that had come to wake with her the last 24 hours and that she only seen the first time that day. That moment showed her heart.

She was funny, innocent and wise at the same time. She would say the strangest things, often without knowing she said them. One time, when her and my dad were out on vacation in Germany, my dad was looking for a butcher to get some meat and they stopped along the road when they saw a policeman on a motor. She rolled down the window and asked: "Hallo, wo gibt es hier eine Schlägerei?" (Slagerij is Dutch for butcher, but Schlägerei in German means a brawl or a riot." The police guy looked around in a very anxious way, like a group of fighting people could come around the corner any moment. She was hilarious translating words like that. Those moments will never leave me. They make you laugh and feel that everything is so relative in life. Sometimes we take life way to serious.

I remember her in the beautiful way she was and the way she wanted us to see life and the people in it. And she saw life, saw Europe, on many travels to every corner of the continent. She sat in the sun on the beaches in Spain, explored the castles in Scotland and fell of a donkey in Greece. Of course, it was hard, watching her health detoriate in the past ten years, taking care of her on a daily basis together with my little sister. Having dinner with her every night, watching her get worse over the years. The neighborhood changed, most of her friends passed away and it got more and more quiet. I truly can see how elderly people, without family or with family that never visits can feel utterly lonely, imprisoned in their own enviroment.

Yet, mom never gave up. She kept fighting, she kept her wits up and it was often her comforting others than the other way around. "What's the use of complaining?" she always said "Keep your spirits up and if you fall, you get up and walk on. No use in crying over spilt milk."

This is not a sad sob story, it is a message of encouragement and hope. It is life. We are all children, each with our own story, own experiences, own situations in life. It is not always wine and roses. Relationships with our parents can be hard, difficult, sometimes even seem beyond repair. Yet they are still our parents, like we are still their children. Sometimes taking a first step can break that deafening silence. Even if it is against better knowledge.

For all of you with a loving family and that special bond with your parents. Keep them close, tell them you love them, laugh and live life as much as you can together. When the years pass you will notice that whether you are close or not, you carry a lot of the same character signs in you, from your mom and your dad, as you will pass yours on to the next generation.

And for you who have lost your mom, dad or both parents, you are never alone. Of course we always want to keep them with us till infinity, but they will always be there, in your heart, guiding you in a whisper, present in all those beautiful memories, never forgotten. Find hope and smiles in that and know that it is not about loss, but about the treasures in life they gave you, to coop and to carry on and that will live on in you always.

I know this is a long post, but as always it comes from the heart. It is my way to honor my mom on this day and to give some sort of a signal to tell her that she did the right things in all that she did and that it all will be alright. Like I hope that you who reads this will find some kind of positivism in it and to make you aware that life is not about looking back, but about looking ahead. To tell you to not live life in the past, but in the here and now and to cherish the ones that gave life to you. The most beautiful gift and present in one.

She was a YUUGE fan of Barbra Streisand. This one is for you. Happy Mother's Day.



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:s27heart7:

what a beautiful tribute my friend. I lost my mom this past November, and its a tough day for sure.

So beautifully written IM. I too am experiencing my first Mother's Day without my wonderful mother. She passed 7/25/2016 after a five year battle with stroke induced dementia.

My mother was the strongest woman I have ever known, she sacrificed everything for her children. There are five of us, four boys and one girl, the girl being myself. I miss her so much but as you said she is here with me in my heart always. My mother was funny, sweet and tough as nails. She was an impressive story teller and she enjoyed talking to anyone and everyone!! I get my own gift of gab honestly.

I can tell your mother raised a wonderful man by the way you interact with everyone here, she must have been a wonderful woman.

I have two boys of my own and I am surrounded by them both and my wonderful husband today. I am truly blessed.

I will post this one as my tribute to her.

Amen to that, my friend :)

“Missing You”

"About ten years from now", he said,
"It might hurt less...", you being dead.
A blink of eye, that time I know,
Will pass on by with much to show

Of gifts you gave I treasure dear
Until their day to share appear.
To birth my life was not enough;
The Earth's charm seen 'tis not a bluff,

You taught so well of life to trust.
Without you now, at times, a bust -
The sense of whom desires hand
Of mine to take and make a stand.

When helping hand helped shed your fear,
Too young for memories seen clear,
Elicits truth through stories told
Preparing where my path unfolds.

A wish you spoke I wish you wrote
Oft flutters for a queasy float.
Move on I will and grant you yours
On through the never ending moors.

Though memories fade day by day
Of swimmer wading shelter made,
The thoughts of you lift up my day.
I'll not have it another way. 1/25/2014


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For Mezzo, Boots & InTune...

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