Month: April 2012

Spring has sprung…

/ Paula Turner / Leave a comment

The spring has sprung, the grass is rizz. I wonder where them birdies is? – Winnie the Pooh

Well, spring HAD sprung. The question in a few days may be where is the grass…and the flowers….? Underneath the forecasted snow perhaps?

 

Our whole life would change…

/ Paula Turner / 4 Comments

If we could see the miracle of a single flower, our whole life would change – Buddha

My daughter loves Grape Hyacinth. She has studied and feels connected to Buddhism. And her whole life has changed.

A year ago, in the midst of a challenging first year of university, Laura realized that she had started down the wrong path. Not that university was the wrong path, but that the university she had chosen possibly was not the right one. Although it was an excellent university and one that had been the perfect fit for her brother, Laura felt out of sorts, perhaps even out of place.

At 18 years old, she made the brave decision to follow her heart – and her head – and move to a university much farther from home, without much but thin threads to her life here. It has been a year. A year of triumphs, smiles, homesickness, adventures, great friendships, a few tears here and there – but without question, an excellent choice.

I visited her in March and had my greatest wish confirmed: she had found her place. It was like she wrote her life story and then jumped into it.

People often say, “it can’t be what you want”.  I disagree. What  I want for my children is what I want for myself: to feel at peace with who they are, find happiness and feel they are living their lives for themselves. To follow someone else’s wishes is not what makes for a life.

So yes, along with her life, my whole life has changed. And at the same time, I am at peace. I miss her, just as I miss the immediate presence of her brother, but I know that they are living THEIR lives. And so missing them does not consume me, but rather is a confirmation that they are on their way, confident in their relationships with us and confident in themselves.

A daffodil in every dustbin…

/ Paula Turner / 10 Comments

For me, there’s a daffodil in every dustbin – Eric Sykes

I love this quote and was so glad to finally have a photo to go with it. I found the quote when I was writing the eulogy for my father-in-law’s funeral in 2009. Dad Turner was a man who truly could find a daffodil in every dustbin, literally and figuratively. He was an eternal optimist and he found good in everyone. The literal side of that quote was that dad and is brother, Charlie, loved to go to the dump at the cottage (which they called the Trading Post) to discover “daffodils” – many “treasures” someone else had let go, they were able to put to good use.

I always felt so loved and accepted by my father-in-law and since I did not grow up with my own father, Dad Turner helped me understand what kind of relationship I could have with my dad. Fortunately, I did end up very close to both my “dads”.  They are both gone now and I miss them both keenly, though in different ways, at different times.

The photo above was taken at the family cottage this past weekend – a place that Dad Turner worked so hard to make special for all of us to enjoy. As Kyle said in his eulogy to his grandfather, Grandpa worked hard, but he worked hardest on us – building a family.

Hey dad – woo-ha!

Sakura Hanami in High Park

/ Paula Turner / 3 Comments

This weekend, my son reminded me that the cherry blossoms would be in full bloom at High Park, Toronto. I am so grateful that he pointed us there as it was an amazing sight and definitely worth seeing in person.

Sakura Hanami basically translates to “cherry blossom flower viewing”. For information about walks to get the most out of your time there, follow this link about the Cherry Blossoms. You need to act fast, though – with the rain today, it will probably be only a day or two more before the blossoms will come down.

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