A year has been added to my age recently. I could comment about my feelings on that whole dealio, but why? Probably just best to accept that the number is just a number. Hmmm. I’m going to keep that in mind when I see the number on the doctor’s office scales later this month.

My family gathered here at our hacienda and loved on me with their presence, hugs, food, cards, games, gifts, laughs, fun stories. It was a great day. I was playing Sirius music through our TV speaker and displaying old family pictures through the Roku as I do often, VERY often.

While playing games, my girl Lea wanted to change to some different music. You know, those silly kids don’t always enjoy their folks’ music. I was fine with that, Sirius Country Yacht channel had been playing for hours.

As we went back to playing cards the music Leanna selected made me catch my breath. The piano sounded like me playing. The voices sounded like my young daughters. And DeWayne and me.

Leanna had been cleaning out boxes of stuff in their home and came across a cassette tape from her youth. “Noises from the Coffman Parlor”. Long ago in an earlier chapter of life, we made the tape while doing our favorite thing of singing together. She doesn’t have a cassette player anymore. Do you? Yeah, likely not. But Lea found someone who was able to convert the contents of the cassette into a CD.

As we listened the girls reminisced about Jolie always being forced to sing the soprano high notes because no one else could. “We all had alto voices, why did I have to sing the high parts,” said Jo. And the solo Leanna sang for her high school graduation was on there. Along with songs where the three of us sang harmony. DeWayne sang from time to time. He was notorious for singing wrong lyrics. 😜 Don’t get me wrong, though. He LOVED singing with his 3 girls.

But then our focus went back to playing games. We are gamers. There was fun to be had with the kids and grandkids and us old folks. The game was Flip 7 Extreme, and our son-in-love Luke was pretty much dominating most of the games.

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The next evening DeWayne asked me if I’d like to listen to the music again, just the two of us. We wanted to listen more closely. So we did.

And right there in our living room I was transported back to 108 E Vine. I looked over at DeWayne and his eyes were closed. A tear or two on his cheeks. Mine, too. I knew “where” he was, too. Our minds were seeing two little girls. Our hearts were recalling the younger days of our family life. So long ago. So very long ago. Good times, not so good times. Life.

On one of the first songs played I heard my voice singing these words and I could still remember the words to sing along:

“I count it as a privilege, I count it cause for praise, to kiss my children goodnight at the end of every day. For I know too soon they’re up and gone and walking out the door, and I’ll never have a child to kiss goodnight anymore”.

The song is Goodnight Kiss by Steve & Annie Chapman. From the 1970’s.

DeWayne and I talked about how difficult it was to hear this music without choking up and shedding a flood of tears. But we listened to every song.

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It is so easy, way too easy in fact, for me to be caught up in thinking about all the things I did wrong as a young mom. Wow there was a lot of “wrong” to think about. Do all moms deal with this same mindset?

But sitting there listening and remembering through the tears was like a gentle hug from God.

It’s very hard for me to believe but maybe….. I was all He intended me to be as a mom to my girls.

Maybe you were/are, too. God takes our pitiful, weak, often failed efforts and He makes them enough.

HE is enough, we’re sure not. And that’s the good news. He is a good good Father.

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Thank you Leanna and Jolie for the precious beautiful day. Thank you God for Leanna and Jolie. ❤️