Enjoy Your Children

My mother-in-law Eunice Elkins has always loved to cut out special things from newspapers, etc. and give to all of us if they have special meaning.

On the side of my refrigerator are things my girls Stephanie and Kaitlyn made when they were children. They have actually been on my refrigerator since they made them. I have never taken them down on purpose to think of them as they get older the things they made when they were little. It has always been a source of joy to me to see these things made by my children that some people may have long since stored away.

My daughter Stephanie is now 28, gone and married. My youngest daughter Kaitlyn took her life at 23 on 4-11-13.

There is a clipping my mother in law gave me from a newspaper of the comic strip “Family Circus” on the side of my refrigerator as well with all my children’s creations. This clipping was dated on the back 1990. When she gave it to me I immediately got its meaning and it was very significant to me. I hope you can read it. What it really means is enjoy your children while they’re young, even the messiness, the difficult times and everything, because in only a very brief time they will be grown and gone and you will only have the memories. I have looked at this comic every day of my life since 1990 always remembering and living by its meaning. Thank you Nanny.

(you cannot see the last scene on this clip due to my page writing on the side covering it up. Once it gets down in the blog you will see it. But what it shows is the mother as an old woman looking in the attic at all her now grown children’s toys being put up in the attic all nice and neat).