Lately, I have been very aware that my opportunity to make my mark is slowly slipping through my fingers. I realize that because I write out my thoughts and feelings for the world to see my mark may have already been made in some people’s opinion, but I am feeling this strong pull to be the person that is remembered well.
Yesterday as my daughter Ashleigh and I were poking around Target, we found ourselves spritzing fragrances. One in particular had us both thinking of my Mom. It was a small travel size bottle of gardenia body spray and once we released it into the air with both thought of my Mom. I immediately had tears in my eye and a lump in my throat. My Mom is and always will be remembered, as much for her wackiness as anything else. Miss Mary was a quirky woman who was severely irreverent, however in the right circumstances she could become a very refined and elegant woman. There are days when I know that she lives on in me.
My Dad is never far from my mind, most often because of the crap load of mess he has left my sister and me to deal with when he put his mitts into the Trust that my Mom and he had put into place for when they died. At this point I realize that whether I like it or not what is happening is nothing that I can change and I have taken to deep breaths when dealing with the daily frustrations of this fiasco. My Dad was not someone you would cross. Dad had a way of convincing you that you wanted exactly what he wanted regardless if you really did. Here is the important part, the poet Maya Angelou has said “When people show you who they are believe them”. Dad showed me who he was, but I always doubted what I was seeing, leaning towards the fact that he was family and well…he would never intentionally hurt family…we all know how that turned out. The sad fact is that for me my memories of my Dad are of the hurt he has inflicted on our family so that he alone would be happy. Not exactly a stellar legacy in my opinion. There will be no reminiscing in the aisles of Target about him for me.
I hope that I can be the person that people believe has a good heart and loving spirit. I hope that when I am gone people will laugh at memories we have had together and remember them fondly. I want to leave my mark softly with love and laughter and have the scent of my life be recognized one random day for no other reason than people believed whom I was and our time together leaves a pleasant mark. What would you like your mark to be?
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