Who are you my child? (MLM Prompt)

Raising children
The hardships, the joys, the anger, the love
teaching the ‘little people’ how to become the best that they can be
instilling all the ‘bits and pieces’ that were taught to me
in this different world, this different way of living
sometimes the battles reign supreme, with the pieces not quite fitting
yet, all a mother wants and needs, is simple and not complicated
happiness, being true, settling into a life pattern

**

Their path will be rocky, as was mine, stepping over pebbles
leaping over boulders, experiencing heartache, learning what’s expected
finding love and believing in themselves.
It’s not an easy task for them pursuing dreams, for sometimes dreams
are just that and nothing will come of them.
Perhaps expectations run too high. “Why can’t you be like this or that”?
“What makes you tick, what is your passion?” dreams are simply not enough.
How easy it would be, for them to find their path, how easy it would be for me
to say enough…is enough.

***

Yet I’m bad at teaching lessons, I know this to be fact.
I can’t see my child face consequences.
This is a failure, for the lessons can’t be taught, this is my unavoidable pain
that I’ve brought upon myself.

Raising children is not easy, the road is fraught with danger.
Finding love is what you wish for them, to love themselves and others.
Pursuing dreams is a wish, but is it a reality?

I cannot find you
our roads have crossed too often
find yourself, be happy

©jmtacken Jan 5th 2014

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For Mind Love Misery’s prompt this week, we have many choices..choices I’m not good with, so I have incorporated 3 of them in one. I wrote this without really thinking, the old S.O.C just typed and whatever sprang upon the page – so be it, for good or for bad, this is my entry to the prompt.

http://mindlovemisery.wordpress.com/2014/01/05/prompt-37-unavoidable-pain/#comments

The prompts were:-

Some examples of unavoidable pain which you are absolutely free to use
Taking up exercise
Medical procedures
Medication
Rescue efforts (ever hurled yourself in the path of a moving object to save someone?)
Job interviews
Raising children
Finding love
Pursuing dreams

Capturing History

Tonight I had my parents over for dinner.

Mum is 83 dad is 85 years young.

The dinner was thoroughly enjoyed, but the best part of the evening was the beginning of history in the making.

I had decided to video them talking about their child-hood, and their lives before coming to Australia.

Dad escaped from (Czechoslavakia) as it was known then during the war. Though being captured a few times, held at gun point, almost shot by an SS guard, and endured and saw things that no one should have to in their life time, he managed to escape to England where he met my mother.

Dad spoke for an hour sometimes wavering in his thoughts and his memory and  next weekend we will continue his amazing journey before mum then talks about her life.

I wanted to capture not only their life but their voices and their faces, so that my children will remember them and their children and generations of our family to come.

Sometimes we think of doing these things and then it’s too late. The memory will sadly fade. Their great- great- great grandchildren, will not know them by voice, only by aged and yellow photos. They may hear the stories that will be handed down about what sort of life they led, but this way they will have a visual of who they were.

Our parents are to be loved, cherised and remembered.

Please seize the moments when you can.

**My Memoir – The Empty Nest A Mother’s Hidden Grief is now available through Amazon and Lulu (J M Kadane)**