~~This is a picture of my mom and my youngest grandbaby and her youngest great grandbaby.
~~I wrote an author’s note for one of my upcoming books thanking the people who had helped make the book possible. I never know for sure who I should thank first. My editor? My agent? My publisher?
~~Then I realized that person – the one I should thank first – was my mom. She never told me I couldn’t be a writer although she must have thought I had big dreams for a little country girl. Dreams that might never come true, but she never discouraged those dreams. She wanted me to be happy and if that meant chasing after what seemed like an impossible dream, she didn’t tell me that. Instead she wished wings for my feet. Then when I got married too young and had a couple of babies, again too young, she was probably thinking I’d do well to get the babies diapered and fed. And she was right, but I also wrote a few words here and there between diaper changes and chores. Because she loved me, she never said I was too young even when I was. She just helped me be old enough and loved my babies along with me.
~~When I spent money Darrell and I couldn’t spare on a writing course I found in the back of a magazine (I was desperate for a way to learn how to go about being a writer), she never said I was crazy or foolish. She didn’t even look as if she thought it. She just kept loving me and believing I could do whatever I set my mind to. The same as she had always done. And does even still.
~~She never had the writing bug except for keeping a journal of her daily life some of the time, but she lived life to the fullest. She married when she was nineteen and moved out on the farm with my dad. I was her third daughter and the baby. She saw that we grew up to be responsible adults. She taught us how to work. But best of all she taught us how to laugh and enjoy life. Now age is catching up with her, stealing some of her sparkle. But the sparkle’s not completely gone as you can see in this picture. All it takes to bring it back is a sweet grandbaby beside her.
~~Since we’re talking about grandbabies, I’m off this weekend to babysit the WV grandbabies while their mom and dad combine a business trip with a little rest and relaxation. Those last two aren’t what I’m expecting with four kids six and under, but we’ll have fun.
~~I sent out a newsletter today with a new giveaway. If you want to get in on the fun of being in a drawing for two of my books – your choice of which ones, and Laura Frantz’s book The Frontiersman’s Daughter (set in pioneer Kentucky days), all autographed, then leave a comment here or send an e-mail from my website, https://www.annhgabhart.com/.
~~Thanks for reading and if you don’t see a post here on Sunday, you’ll know I didn’t get the grandbabies to bed on time.