Life as we know it

Sometimes I wonder what the future holds for me and the people who I hold closest to my heart. The happiness, maybe despair, new beginnings, enduring pain (emotionally and physically), heartache, wishful thinking, emotional upset, wonderful elation, life-long dreams, and a whole other host of ups and downs that people experience during their lives. What has happened in your lives to shape the person that you are, or have become? Is there a balance of good and bad in everyone's lives? Do some of you have the perfect life, or has your life been forever fraught with 'bad luck' or sadness?

My life so far has been a mixture of sadness and happiness, I'd like to think that I have had a 'healthy' balance; my childhood was good, my adolescence not so, my early adulthood was forever learning and appreciating new adventures, my twenties were full of new beginnings, and now I have turned 30 - married with a child, what will the next decade hold for me?

I have always believed in fate, a map of my life has already been written, I am simply walking through the path of my life each day, as it is mapped out for me, and things that happen, happen for a reason. Does it sound pretentious of me to think that? Do I need to hold on to something so trivial as fate, that whatever I do isn't actually my decision, but of fate that guides me to that particular place?

My grandmother died just over a year ago, and without going into too many details, I believe her untimely death, made people aware of their misgivings, and what people mean to each other. Recognising certain elements in other people and standing up for what you believe in. My grandmother and I were so very close, and memories and photographs are what I hold dear in my heart, that no one can erase.

My story does come round to a point (!) I think above all life in general is to be appreciated, not taken for granted, which most of us do. Appreciate the ups and downs and enjoy the time with the people we come into contact in over the years. Most of all love your family and make sure that they know that. I know that this may sound ridiculously corny, but why so? Why can't we just be soppy and carefree about our feelings, has society these days made us lose that ability to care and love and show it freely without feeling embarrassed? Ok I'm going into a whole different direction now, but you get my drift...

Before I close on this lengthy blog post (I don't know what's got into me today!) I would like to say that my grandmother will always be a constant within my life, I have so many photographs of her; with me, her own family, her husband, and ones that I will appreciate and show to my own family in time; the one where she was present at my wedding and others holding my baby son. It was always an inside joke as I was growing up that she always said that she wanted nothing more than to see me get wed, have a child and for me to reconcile with my estranged father before she died, and I always used to think all three was somehow never going to happen, but I have that photograph of her with me on the day of my wedding, and the smile on her face when I took photographs of her holding my son...I will always treasure those photographs, more so now.

I hope that she is somewhere now smiling down on me knowing that she got to see me get married, and to hold in her arms her great-grandchild, and I think most importantly for her that the reconciliation with my father happened even though it was through the sadness of her passing...just to say wherever you may be Nan, thank you for all the happy times spent with you, I will always miss you...

In loving memory of Rose Ellen Francis [1914 - 2007]