The truth of today is that keepers are rapidly approaching the golden years of our lives.  We walk around with our AARP card tucked safely in our wallet.  Because of our age, some restaurants already give us discounts on Early Bird dinners.  Still, keepers are in very good health and our frame of mind is usually more on the positive side than anything else.  But our aging means that we have days when our muscles ache and our bones creak as we do our yoga.  It also means we deal with those times when we look at our lives and grieve the fact that things have not turned out the way we thought they would which leads to us blogging about our issues with our mother and our daughters.  But, mostly, blogs that let everyone know keepers still have issues with God that we are struggling to work out.

The truth is that keepers are living the life we always dreamed of living–just not with the people we thought we would be living it with.  Keepers are getting to experience the joys of having been a daughter and of being a loving mother and even of being a doting Grandma.  We are just not experiencing these things with our real mother or our actual daughters or our own beloved little granddaughters.  For so many years, we could not see the wonderful things we had in our lives simply because keepers were focused more on those who should love us than those who do love us.

This past Christmas (2006) keepers lost what we saw as a very dear friend.  Her name was Deana and we had known her for only a little over two years.  She was 96 years old when she passed and we had come to see her as a very precious woman–someone who taught keepers so much in such a short time.  During the time that keepers knew our dear Deana, we visited her several times a week.  We would go to her apartment for chats and we would visit her in the hospital and follow suit when she was in a rehab center for this injury or that one.  When Deana knew that she was at the end of her life, she had her own daughter call keepers to ask if we would be ther with Deana in the hospital and when she was moved to hospice.  At the time all of this was unfolding, keepers just moved automatically into helpful mode and quietly did what was asked of us.

Only now that our dear Deana has been gone for a while, can keepers see that somehow she had taken on the role of our loving mother.  She had always spoken kindly to keepers and shown us the simple respect people deserve–unlike the senior citizens in our own family had ever done.  Looking back, keepers can see that our love for Deana had grown so quietly that we barely knew it was there until she had already left this earth.  Our relationship with Deana was such a good one.  She did challenge keepers at times but only in the gentlest of ways.  She did help us to grow and change through her words of wisdom.  But, mostly, she gave us the experience of being loved by someone of her age.  She gave us the opportunity to be the loving daughters keepers had always wanted to be.  In our hearts, our dear Deana will be the person we all see as our mother simply because she was so open to filling that role in keepers lives.  Keepers still grieve the loss of our dear Deana but we also thank God that we had the chance to know and love this woman who so freely treated keepers as her daughter.

Keepers have a very good friend who happens to be a non- denominational minister.  It is this man that keepers always turn to when we need to grieve the fact that keepers do not get to be mothers in this world any more.  Just the last few days, keepers have spoken often with our minister friend.  Just last night, though, our friend pointed out that keepers are mothers to many young women in today.  Some are old friends of our daughters, who now come and sit on our front porch for a friendly chat.  Some are young women that have little children of their own who call and share the stories of toddlers antics or of a first grader at pee wee baseball.  Plus we are mothers to our own little alters who look to bigs for their care and love in today.  But what our friend so wisely pointed out is that keepers are mothers to many in today.  The young people who come to keepers do not have to be blood for us to experience the love and joy mothers feel for their children.  This morning, keepers woke up having processed our friends words and knowing full well that keepers are living the life of mothers just as we had always wanted to live.

But, I think mostly keepers dreamed of being Grandmas and giving so much joy to our little grandchildren.  We have been struggling hard to accept that this was not meant to be in our lives.  The truth is that we will not know that joy with the children of our external children.  This has been an almost crippling truth for keepers to deal with but we have come to see that we have many grandchildren all over the world who come to us as little alters in this system or that system wanting only to be loved.

Keepers know a little alter who has always called us Keepers Lady.  She has grown to be very dear to our hearts.  We love sending her little things that make her happy and let her know that she is loved.  But, the best part of knowing this little alter, is the fact that our faces light up with happiness when we hear her voice on the other end of the phone or see her pink letters in an IMing message.  We may not be this little alters true Grandma but we feel that Grandma love for her and that is good enough for us.

Just the other day, a system of alters received a rag doll from KEEPERSKORNER.  The littles were thrilled to get it and wanted to take it everywhere with them–much to the chagrin of the bigs in the system.  But keepers will always remember the fun we had on our hours long shopping trip to find just the right rag doll for these littles.  We will always remember the anticipation of waiting for it to arrive in their post office box.  We even tacked up on our wall the thank you note from the littles.  The truth is that in doing the shopping and making the purchase and waiting for the package to arrive, keepers got to feel the Grandma joy of giving to a child we love just simply because we wanted to do that.

The money keepers would have put into our children and grandchildren all now gets filtered into KEEPERSKORNER.  We are still doing the same giving that we had done within our family for so many years.  But, now, people reach out to say thank you and to send us smiling faces to put up on our WALL OF WONDERFUL.  SO, in a very real way keepers are getting to still experience the life we always wanted to live–which makes each and every one of us so very happy.

These last few days, keepers have felt devastated because all we saw was how our world is supposed to be and how far from that reality we are.  We forgot to take the time to look beyond those truths and see what lies in our reality of today.  Over the last 24 hours keepers have taken that deeper look and seen that we are very blessed indeed because we have been the experiences we always wanted.  It is true that our daughterhood and our motherhood and our grandmotherhood are very different and extremely unique but that only makes them all the more special.

peace and blessings,

keepers