A rose by any other name...

Before I get started, please let me make a disclaimer: This is my blog, my thoughts, the things that are important to me.  I know that not everyone will agree with what I write, nor do I really care about my use of proper grammar, spelling or punctuation.  I am not writing a book-I'm just telling a few stories...so criticism, while taken and duly noted, really doesn't matter in this forum.  I'm not out to win any awards, nor am I out to make people feel all "warm and fuzzy"...you may be bored out of your skull.  I'd apologize, but it wouldn't really be genuine since everyone is free to navigate away and no one is obligated to be here. So, now that I have that out of the way, on to the blog...



My Dad sent me a couple pictures of the cabin this week...he hauled off about 15 or more bags of junk we sacked up last week when we went for the inaugural clean up visit.  He took a picture of the clean porch and then today sent me a picture of the land where he had gone down and mowed it all...it looks wonderful! Family...what would we do without them?
I come from a very eclectic family on both sides of my tree...my Mom's family tends to be more artistic and has more entrepreneurs...my Pop's family has more farmers and musicians...all some of the hardest workers I have ever seen in my life, although all worked in different arenas.  I talked about the love without surrender that I inherited from David Henderson...I guess technically I got it from him first...but I sure do know that my Dad has it, too, and his mother, my Granny, before him.  Dad's a little different, though, because he has sense to sever ties when they hurt him.  I don't.  I love every single member of my family, no matter what their faults or issues or drama. They could stab me in the eye and I would still want them over for lunch on Sunday.  My heart overflows with love that I can't explain--even knowing when I am going to be burned or regret it, I dive in anyway.  To me, it's worth it.  I believe that we are called to extend grace, over and over and over, regardless of the outcome.  To love without expectation...and if we get hurt in the process, that's okay, because we did what we were supposed to do.
David and Elizabeth married and had 10 children.  Five lived.  I walked around in the cabin and I thought, some of those babies were born here-in this very room.  The five children who lived appeared to be successful people...I don't know many of the other branches of the first five...most all of the ones I know are from Sandy's line, which is my line, but here's something that intrigued me...Sandy's sister, Eady, married the brother of Sandy's wife, Nancy.  According to family tale, Eady was a few fries short of a happy meal, and William, her husband, kept her locked up.  Now, this may or may not be true...I know of plenty of families with a "touched" relative who probably needed locking up but wasn't...or those creepy houses where they kept "Uncle Bob" in the back room...but whatever the reason, Eady was locked up.  David Henderson did not like that idea at all, and went to tell William to stop mistreating his daughter.  William beat the dog tar out of David.  I guess maybe he wasn't the kind of fellow who liked being told what to do...but seriously, if you were going to lock your wife up and you had someone there who was telling you not to do it, wouldn't you just have said "Well fine, then. You take her crazy butt to your house?"  I don't know what could have happened that was so bad that William felt the need to kick a handicapped senior citizen's rear, but he did it.  And it must have been a pretty rough beating, because two of David's sons decided that Mr. Land needed to pick on someone his own size.  They went and found him and beat him so bad that he died two days later.  Eady snapped out of her "spell" after his death and went on to remarry...the brothers had to flee the state and settled down in Mississippi...and David got his daughter back.  Now how's that for family loyalty?  And think about Sandy, being married to William Land's sister---can you imagine how much strain that would have put on Sunday dinner conversation? But despite it all, I keep asking the question "Why not just let her go? Why fight with a man over his own child?" We'll never know, but we see what happens when you spit in the wind, now don't we?

So I walk thru the cabin--it's in such disrepair and full of garbage right now that it's hard to tell how much we'll have to do before it is ready for restoration-and I think on this family and all the generations that came from here.  And I wonder why some families feel they are better than others---it really doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things how hard you worked, how many books you read, how many countries you traveled to...how much money you have...the real question is "How much did you love?"  When you die, whether beat to death or in your sleep, what will people say about you?  Will they pity you?  Will they praise you?  Will your story be told?  When I die, all I want is for people to know that I loved them---and to me that is all that matters.  I'm not the best wife, mother, or daughter.  I'm not even a very nice person, for all intents and purposes...I'm grouchy and unreasonable at times...especially since I have been sick. I do have faith and won't apologize for my beliefs, nor do I feel it is necessary to justify them to anyone else.  I am honest, to a fault, usually, and above all else, I open my heart to love all those that I know. And for those whose blood runs the same as in my veins, it's quadrupled.  I feel my heart exploding out of my chest when a new baby is born to our family--even when I will never get to see it.  I have cousins I have never met, but still, there's love there for them. My chest is full of song when someone gets a raise or a new job...and I physically hurt when there are tears.  So family is everything to me--and whether you agree or not is irrelevant.  You are only given one shot on this sphere...and if you show up to your grave with only your accomplishments to show for it, I hope you enjoyed them.  Because where you store your treasure, that's where you get to enjoy it-be it here or Heaven.  Love, and you'll have the best of both worlds.