New York City Christmas

 It is Christmas in the heart that puts Christmas in the air.

So this is Christmas
And what have you done
Another year over
A new one just begun
And so this is Christmas
I hope you have fun
The near and the dear ones
The old and the young

A very merry Christmas
And a happy New Year
Let's hope it's a good one
Without any fear

And so this is Christmas

(War is Over, if you want it, war is over now)

For weak and for strong
The rich and the poor ones
The road is so long
So happy Christmas
For black and for white
For yellow and red ones
Let's stop all the fight

Maximum Pace

My hypersensitive awareness of time's speed led me to push myself to experience life at a maximum pace. If I were going to have such a short visit on earth, I had to do everything possible to experience it now.

When you sense a faint potentiality for happiness after such dark times you must grab onto the ankles of that happiness and not let go until it drags you face first out of the dirt - this is not selfishness, but obligation. You were given life; it is your duty (and also your entitlement as a human being) to find something beautiful within life, no matter how slight.

 You take whatever works from wherever you can find it,

and you keep moving toward the light.

Happy Right Now

 At the end of the day faith is a funny thing. It turns up when you don't really expect it. It's like one day you realize that the fairy tale may be slightly different than you dreamed. The castle, well, it may not be a castle. And it's not so important happy ever after, just that its happy right now. See once in a while, once in a blue moon, people will surprise you , and once in a while people may even take your breath away.

 You got a dream, you gotta protect it. People can't do something themselves, they wanna tell you that you can't do it. You want something? Go get it. Period.

You just have to focus on things that never change. Like the stars. Those are always the same stars. In a hundred years no ones going to have a clue who we were, but they'll know those same stars.

Never Grow Up

Your little hands wrapped around my finger
And it's so quiet in the world tonight
Your little eyelids flutter cause you're dreaming
So I tuck you in and turn on your favorite nightlight

To you, everything's funny
You got nothing to regret
I'd give all I have honey
If you could stay like that

 Take pictures in your mind of your childhood room
Memorize what is sounded like what your dad gets home
Remember the footsteps, remember the words said
And all your little brother's favorite songs
I just realized everything I had is someday gonna be gone

 Oh darling don't you ever grow up, don't you ever grow up
Just stay this little
Oh darling don't you ever grow up, don't you ever grow up
It could stay this simple
I won't let nobody hurt you
Wont let no one break your heart
No one will desert you
Just try to never grow up
Never grow up

TJB

'Time heals all wounds.'
There was a point where I began to doubt - make that hate - that old adage.
Time is fickle. It doesn't 'heal' woulds as much as it 'salts' them.
The farther down the road of grief I got,
the less patience I had with myself for not having it more together.

In Loving Memory of TJ Brady
December 3, 1983 -- January 14, 2001

As you begin a lifetime of driving there are a few things you should know. As your mother, I fear for you! Do you know how to avoid black ice? Do you know how to avoid peer pressure-- not to speed, not to drink and drive? Do you know how important you are to me? Do you know that if you are hurt -- I am hurt. If you bleed -- I bleed. If you die -- I die.

Take care, be careful, you have a role to fill on life's stage -- I need to see you finish what I've started.

A car is a wonderful thing. It is the first step to independence, freedom, and young adulthood. Take care with these responsibilities as they can be deadly -- a car is not a toy but a wonderful necessity. It symbolizes freedom, independence and adulthood. I know you are ready for these things but I am not so sure that I am. Please be careful, I love you with my whole soul and I need to know that you will survive the teen years so that I can enjoy you as an adult.

 

"Other things may change us,
but we start and end with the family."

Lucky

“What you leave behind
is not what is engraved in stone monuments,

but what is woven into the lives of others.

I'm lucky I'm in love with my best friend
Lucky to have been where I have been
Lucky to be coming home again
Lucky we're in love every way
Lucky to have stayed where we have stayed
Lucky to be coming home someday

And so I'm sailing through the sea
To an island where we'll meet
You'll hear the music fill the air
I'll put a flower in your hair
Though the breezes through trees
Move so pretty you're all I see
As the world keeps spinning round
You hold me right here right now

 "I believe that everything happens for a reason. People change so that you can learn to let go, things go wrong so that you appreciate them when they're right, you believe lies so you eventually learn to trust no one but yourself, and sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together."