Thoughts from the last week

The last week has been somewhat of a whirlwind. Between Uncle Larry passing away at only 51 years, us traveling to the funeral and back, and then reviewing some conversations in my mind, it's another one of those days when I just feel very fortunate, blessed, lucky, you name it. Life is short and it reminds me to keep my priorities straight. These thoughts have focused primarily on family and my children.

I guess one thing sticking in my mind is from talking with Lissy about children and large families. It was mentioned to her about how maybe others may have a different perspective on family size, which is obvious to me daily whenever I go anywhere. But, she told me about some comments she heard from a cousin last week which was basically saying why have a lot of kids, maybe it's kind of crazy, and "it's not like everyone's farming anymore (i.e. don't need to raise 10 farm-hands like in days past)." In any event, I was surprised to hear these comments were made, yet it did make me look at simply the difference in perspective as to how a parent sees his/her children. I would suppose some think of their children as maybe an expected next step after marriage, or maybe a possession, or maybe a burden, I don't really know. But, if on the other hand, you think of your children as miracles, blessings, eternal optimism, gifts - why then would you not want as many as God sends? Yes, it can be tiring and very challenging to raise your children to be the best people they can be, but as far as work goes, it's a very fulfilling type of work that offers repayment many times over with each smile, each "I love you", each milestone, each simple day. Not much can compete with that.

I read once & found it interesting when a father said that he can run through a park in the morning and others will wave at him and even though they may never participate in the running or similar exercise, it seems people still appreciate and support what he's doing. However, he said, why isn't the same true if he's walking through the park with five of his children? Interesting point.