the end to the beggining

A lot happened this year. So much destruction and death. We have to think that the good out ways the bad. The part of the good is smaller than the bad so we have to focus on the small good to make us move forward. The year is coming to an end. Some of us believed that we wouldn't see past December 21, 2012 but we have moved so far into technology that that was not going to happen. God has bigger plans for us. We still don't know how it will end just know that we have to prepare ourselves for the future ahead. We have to be better persons not just for our own sake but for humanity.


in Missouri the day my family decided to go tubing

As the year comes to an end we focus on what the year has brought us. When that clock hits midnight we want to be with someone special.  Be it family, your love or a friend. The thought of spending a day like the end to the beginning of the year alone is both a happy one and a sad one. Some of us don't have any. We have to think that there is something better in store for us pray that the next year is better.

Some will start by saying,  I start this new year working out going to the gym. Why ? So that you will go for the first two months and quit. So that you will start that new diet but give up. This new years resolution has always been a fraud to me. If you want to loose weight why wait till the new year? Why not today? Instead start with a new challenge. Make a stranger smile, laugh, spend more time with family. Treat that friend more special. When you say you will pray for someone actually do it.

Mother nature has been doing us right this year but how well have we treated her. People still throw cigarette butts out the window. Think about recycling more. Plant something. The whole hour without electricity wouldn't work for a nation that lives off of technology.

Many famous people died this year but the not famous people out number them. Thousands will cry for one that lives in the spotlight but not for their neighbor.

When that clock hits midnight what will you reminisce? A whole year will flash back in one minute. How the mind works. You'll remember the ones who couldn't be there and toast to what will come. We keep wanting better but we don't change. How do you change? Make that call, just get up and walk out that door the world is ready. Make a change for yourself.



baby Maggie

baby Rafael

I will remember that I still have my parents and that alone makes me a lucky person. I still have my sisters and their family's health is good. That I still have Heather by my side and her family is healthy as well. I will remember all the bad experiences and remember all the good ones. I will be thankful that our family grew with two more little angels this year. I will also remember the hate that someone had to set our home in Mexico on fire. We learn from what happens to make us better persons.

I may not be rich with materialistic things but thank God that I am rich in many many other ways. I don't know what the new year will bring. I pray that it will bring more happiness than sorrow. I will focus on making a total stranger feel good about themselves. Begin a new challenge and maybe go camping. What will you want to remember this time next year?

As the year comes to an end just think about the new beginning. Hope that you are where you want to be when the clock hits midnight for they say how you end your year is how the next will begin. Whether its alone or filled with a huge crowd make it special your own way.

Whatever you do ladies remember your red undies for it's a legend that if you wear them crossing into the new year your next will be filled with love.

Cheers to my love, my family, and friends may our next year be that much more special. May we be who we want to be. May we give thanks to being able to celebrate another crazy happy year.

a christmas card

Have you ever had a best friend? No, really a best friend? A friend that would be like a sister or in some cases like a brother. Someone you talk to like a part of your family no hold backs? I met Jennifer my ninth grade of high school. She and I were two out of three girls in our class. We had to stick together. You see it was a class filled with boys and the third girl was prettier than us at least that's how the boys treated her. We decided from that classroom that we were determined to be the best friends possible. We would exchange letters over the summer. Talk on the phone about anything. She came to be the only other person that knew me, and I her. If something happened or we wanted to talk we were there for each other no matter what time of the night it was. I didn't celebrate my birthdays but she always wanted to make it a big deal. She was the first friend I had that spent the night at my house. She would drive from balch springs to come visit me in oak cliff. I would do the same. I helped her with her crushes on boys or whether she should cut her hair. I remember when she bought her new car how she came to the house so she could give me a ride in it. We didn't have prom dates so we went together as friends. I remember when she moved out, got her own apartment. I remember when she finally got a job that she liked and was happy to have my picture on her desk as a family member. She would say I'm her best friend from many many years. We'd even keep count of the years. I also remember when she was ready to be a mom. When I came out she took it as a surprise couldn't believe it but understood and was happy for me.

I moved to Kansas and we still kept in touch but it wasn't the same. She was beginning to prepare what she had always wanted...a family with someone that loved her dearly. As we got older her group of friends were not like my group of friends. Our likes were now our differences. When I moved back to Texas our friendship was still there but we wouldn't see or talk for months.

When I finally got a call it was too late. I didn't realize she had tried to find me. I was at work when I got the call. The last time I saw her she was laying peacefully.  I visited her mom just before the last goodbye and she and I cried together. She told me that Jennifer had missed me, that she was scared, that she wanted me to be there. I didn't know what to say. I just shared those moments with her mother and told her that I was sorry and that I didn't know. Jennifer seemed normal but no one knew it would end this way.

I think about her a lot. I think about the wedding she'd wanted the kids she'd have. I think about her birthdays. I think about her just out of the blue. One day I saw someone and stopped her to ask what her name was because she looked exactly like my best friend Jennifer. I mostly blame myself for not being there. I haven't been able to talk to her family. I wrote her mother once for her birthday. Turned out Jennifer always got a kick out off the fact that her mom's birthday was a day after mine. I never got a response.

I don't know how we let time pass by without speaking? I should have been a better friend. She was the only daughter to her mother. I wish I could turn back time. She needed me and I wasn't there. I never got to say goodbye.

I don't know if you have ever had a best friend? Not just someone that shows up sometimes but all the time. A friend that buys you a rose on valentines day because we weren't lucky to get them from someone else. A friend that didn't have to go drink to have a good time but met up at McDonald's to just sit there and talk. A friend that would miss lunch just to sit out and stare into space thinking about worries as time flew by. If you do have such a friend I can say that you are one lucky person. If you lost that friend go find them. If you haven't had such a friend maybe it's because they were there all along and you didn't realize it.

I came home one day last week from work asked Heather if she got the mail. Sometimes I don't even know why I ask her if I do it right after she does. She had gotten all the mail she said...so later when I went to check it myself I reached down my mailbox and found a letter addressed to me. As I began to open it tears poured down my face. Heather didn't know what was going on. It was the best Christmas card I could have received. Jennifer's mom mailed me a card with a special note in it.

It's been six years now that she hasn't been here. I still wonder what our lives would be like if she were here today.

love is ...

Sometimes we are asked this question " how did you meet ?" 

It was a day in September the year 2001. She introduced herself and well when she did I'm not going to lie I said " and who are you? " I took it as someone wanting to be my friend. The more I got to know her the more we had in common the more time I wanted to spend with her. For the first time in my life I found myself intrigued by someone. I didn't know what I was feeling. I was never really planning on ever getting involved with anyone. I had already made my life up. Wasn't ready for any extra drama and I came with a package that would make it difficult for me to allow my self to get involved with anyone.  As time went by I knew there was something more than just getting together for movies or spending countless hours on the phone. Finally on December 6th 2001 as I sat on her dads couch the question arose. Will you be more than my friend? I pretended to not know what she meant until she questioned me again. Will you be my girl? I had that feeling in my stomach that I've heard people say before so I thought well I do like you a lot so Yes. It was there that I had my first kiss. I had lived my life differently than the normal kid. So believe when I say that I was sitting there age 23 and had my first kiss. That is the moment I knew my life would never be the same. We were inseparable.

Our beginning was tough. My parents didn't take it very well. I don't blame them. There are things that I wish I could have done differently. All I knew was that I was in love. All I knew was to not give up. I am the oldest so then my sisters looked up to me. I was a big support for them and here I was introducing someone into my life. But here it is eleven years later and all I have to say is that I'm glad we never gave up. I've been there when she lost her grandparents and she has been there since before our first niece was born. I don't regret loving. We've had many obstacles but there hasn't been anything yet that we can't conquer. I sometimes wonder that people have said in the past "I wonder if their love will last?"  well it has. I love her more everyday.

i love her like when you get a brand new book and you don't want to fold the page to save the spot.
i love her like my coffee always has to have ice
i love her like when i hear my favorite song so i pump the volume so that everyone else can hear it.
i love her like a kid loves cake
i love her like a fish that needs water
i love her like a flower that needs the sun
i love her like................................

We lived in Kansas for a little while and I remember feeling like it was us against the world.  I ran out of medicine. I felt to the point of almost losing my last breathes. My medicine was at the point of being discontinued. She drove all over trying to find a store that carried it. Drove for hours and when I told her to give up she wouldn't.  I knew that this was just the beginning of our love story.

I believe in soul mates. I also believe that god has more than one soul mate for you it just depends where you are at that particular moment taking that step left or right. I was lucky. I sometimes ask Heather if she thinks we would have still met if our lives were different. She said yes.

The only advice I can give you is to love. There is no harm in doing so.

I met Heather in September of 2001 just a month after her moving here from Texarkana. Maybe if I wasn't working where we both met, who knew we were destined to cross each others path.