DO OVERS

It is snowing,beautifil white flakes drifting down and the light from the porch showing their silent desent. It is an awesome sight. I let our two dogs out and they gingerly made their way through the cold, wet snow. I love our dogs. They are two mini-pins. They do not fetch or carry. Nor do they know any tricks. Such as walking on their hind legs and barking till it sounds like they are talking. They eat and they sleep. And thats pretty much it. One of them whines quite abit and the other barks alot. The one great atribute they have is they love me. Love pure and sweet, unconditanlly. Of course the fact that I give them cookies every night just might add to that love. But love me they do.
I sing to them off key, I talk to them non-stop. And they will lay on the bed, watching me with big eyes and a puzzled look on their faces. But they always kiss me, their little tounges licking me, telling me how special they think I am. They are nonjudgemental, only loving.

When my mother was very sick and in the hospital the last two weeks of her life. We all were there constantly for her. I stayed at night, alone. I loved that I had her to myself. I talked to her, telling her how much I loved her. How beautiful I thought she was. How when I was young I thought her auburn hair was so lovely. I spent two weeks telling her all the words I should have been telling her over a lifetime. Even now I try to pull my memory back and remember just how many times I picked up the phone, called her and told her how I felt. I want to call out to God. Do overs, I want to do it over. But sadly to say, there just is no such thing as bringing back what we all ready have or have not done. No do overs in this life time.

All those critcal, angry words we say to the people we love, the words that drift back to us just like the snow is drifting through the air outside as I write. Slaping us in the face with their coldness. When we speak to our children, do we bite back the critical words over everything they haven't done right or tell them how proud we are of what they have done right. Everyone wants to feel aceppted, loved, told they have done a good job. We can say we don't care about other peoples approval, but we do. I watched a movie a few weeks ago. Sara Jessica Parker was telling her boyfriends sister that she knew she didn't like her, that noone in the family did and she just didn't care. The girl looked at her for a minute, sipping her coffee. Then she said,"Yes you do." And yes most of the time we care, no matter how loudly we say we don't. We need, crave aceptance. We all have the need to feel good about ourselves. And we all need to take the time to tell the important people in our lifes they have done a good job. We are proud of them. There is no do overs, this time around is it. We best do it while we can.