Most of us have many childhood memories, some are mostly the warm fuzzy type some are a mixture of warm fuzzy with a sprinkling of cold prickles.
As a child I was quite sensitive. My feelings were much more tender than now, YAY FOR THAT! I had tender feelings toward butterflies, people, animals, even snakes & frogs. My older brother would go to the ponds, streams & ditches to catch big frogs, kill them, cut their legs off to eat them.
They really do taste like chicken!
My brother asked me to come with him to go "froggin" on a spring day in Michigan. He would hold the frog as he told me,
"They're just frogs, they don't feel it, stab the knife in fast & hard!"
So, I did it.
Over & over, that day.
I felt so horrible after that, I never went froggin' again!
That feeling hung on my heart for a long time. As much as I wanted to spend time with my big bubby, I was too tender to kill frogs.
Too tender to hurt or to kill.
USAF training helped me a little with that one!
My dear maternal grandfather was also a tender hearted man, loved him so very much! He taught the importance of keeping promises to me from the time I was born!
Unfortunately, my mother, his daughter, didn't absorb that lesson enough to put it into practice.
Mom made many promises, kept very few.
Her negative example taught even more of an important lesson to me to only make promises I could keep.
Say what you will do, then do what you said you would do. Be where you say you will be WHEN you say you will be there or have a VERY TRUTHFUL reason & let the ones expecting you, know.
This is a lesson taught to me by my beloved grandfather.
Mom liked looking at the jewelry in the glass case at the department stores. When I was with her, from the time I was a very small child, she would point out the ruby & gold birthstone rings to me. She would tell me that when I had my 16th birthday, she would give me one of those rings. With the faith, with the innocence of a child, I believed her. I looked forward to it.
It was one of the many promises she made, never honored.
There is no way to go back in time to heal that wound of many wounds. Even if I received or bought my own ruby ring in present day, it would matter less.
There is a happiness factor to this.
Devising a plan to not only delight my own children, while healing my own pain in a roundabout way was genius, if I do say so, myself !
When my own children were around 18 months of age, I took them, one by one, to the jewelry counter, to choose a birthstone ring. Holding onto it in my jewelry box, they were allowed to pick it up, to look at it, yet, not allowed to put it on their finger until their 16th birthday. I could make sure to honour the promise I made to my children & in another way, heal the child within myself.
Did it work?
Yes. It absolutely did!
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