Yesterday I had to brave the traffic and parking fees in downtown Vancouver. Downtown is about an hour and 20 minutes drive from where I live out in the country. It is busy, crowded but I love it! I can say that becuase I dont have to live there I guess. If I wasnt able to come back to my home with it large expanse of farmers fields out the back, the 'mostly' quiet country roads, I might not be so enamoured with downtown.

I always see new things when I get the chance to go. This day I saw a very innovative thing, that I hadn't seen before. Some of the buildings in the downtown core are being renovated, and need to have tarping covering them. They are very tall buildings the tarps are huge. I was sitting at a stop light when I noticed that the tarp I was looking at was not 'see through' as I had thought. I thought I was looking at the windows of the building through the tarp.


There was actually a photo of a highrise imprinted on it, to make the tarp more attractive while it had to be up there! Amazing the things that money is spent on by us earthlings just trying to make our world look beautiful. It is innate in us to want beauty in our lives. Some times this becomes an obsession for me, and I get frustrated and discouraged with the things in my life that aren't beautiful.
My unfinished kitchen, the garden that is taking so long to take shape.
I guess when I focus on the ugly in my life I miss the beauty that there is.

In a few days here my sons wife, whom he is separated from will have a baby. This baby is being brought into the world with out a together family. Because of what I do for a job, (Fostering) and becauase I have taken on the role of raising my family in ways that I feel are most beneficial to the development of secure productive adults very seriously; and because I believe in family and marriage, this has been a hard thing for me to accept.
To me this is ugly. No one needs to get their nose out of joint for me having said that. I am only speaking about myself, my family, my grandchild(ren). Neither of my children set out to be single parents and the pain that resulted in that being the case has been tremedous and has given me a new understanding and compassion for people who find themselves in this same situation. We have been visited with this pain twice now in the same year. I know there are new and modern thoughts that people can choose a lifestyle of having a child without the 'marriage', without the 'traditional family'. Im not addressing that here, I am addressing the pain that comes when a child is concieved in a traditional family setting and for whatever reason because of hurt and disappointment this setting is stripped away. Those responsible to the child have to make adjustments, have to make life work in a whole new way.

As I have battled these thoughts and wrestled with my own bias's over the last nine months. It hasn't been until the last few weeks that the thought has come into my mind 'Hey, theres going to be a little baby soon!' He or she might have my sons soulful eyes or my daughter-in-laws porcelain skin. I have noticed a certain lowgrade excitement developing inside of me. A baby! A life, A new family member.
I had only been seening the ugly, or what was ugly to me. two young people separated by their failings to each other, unable to celebrate the coming of this child becuase of their pain. I also forgot to look at the beautiful, which in a few days I will see and hold and smell and silently pledge into its little ear, that I will be the best grandma that life allows me to be. And yes I am so glad you came, you have made my life more beautiful.
I really was only going to write about Vancouver today, but I guess there was all this in there. If you have gotten this far, I wont aplogize, I'll just say thanks for letting me share.