AND NOW IT BEGINS - SUMMER

       Lake Erie, Mentor Headlands, Ohio
                                                                                   

     It is Memorial Day weekend and I am so worried about all the families and teens going to the lakes and beaches, the swimming holes and back yard pools. This is one of the absolutely worst weekends of the year for drownings.
     If you have followed my blog, you would have figured out by now that I am on a mission to have fewer drownings every summer. I pray that you all have brushed up on your CPR, maybe even downloaded the ZOLL, Pocket CPR, it really is a great app, it talks you through every step you need to take to give emergency CPR.
     Everyone needs to keep a close eye on each other. Someone, specially children, can disappear so fast. Know how deep the water is where you are. If you have or are going to a back yard pool, the best thing to do is to teach, even the smallest baby, how to crawl out of the water, out of the pool. Even if all they do is pull up on the edge and hold on. They need to know they are buoyant, can hold their breath and doggy paddle to the edge. Teaching these things to kids, small children, even babies can be fun games. They learn to save themselves while they think they are playing.

                 "Every time we encourage someone we give
                                                           them a transfusion of courage."
                                                                                 Chuck Swindoll

                                                            MOTHER'S DAY
                                                         
                                                     

 

                         Well, its Mother's Day again. I have always had trouble with this day. When I was a young mother, with children at home, this day wasn't too bad. I was caught up with the kids making me things and trying to make my day special. Just having them was special!
                            But it is difficult to accept the idea that you don't have a mother to celebrate. At the age I am at now, there are many who have lost their mothers. Mothers that have gone on to a greater place because it was their time in life, after living a full and rich life, to move on. I have always felt cheated, felt like my mother was cheated. She was cheated out of life, seeing her children grow, feeling the hugs of her grandchildren, seeing their smiling faces. I didn't have  a mother to make little drawings for, to make paper flowers for, to make hand written cards of love, full of X's and O's. I was thrilled to receive these kinds of things as a mother and now, grandmother. And I know in my heart that my mother knows that if she had been here, she would have received the same.
                          When I get to feeling down and blue, as I do now, I remind myself that she feels my love even now and I feel hers. God helps to keep that line of communication open. There are those out there that feel the same that I do and if you don't know, you should, your mother is always with you, holding your hand.