This Is My Story

‘‘Twas the night before school began and all was solemn and all was sad”. Well that’s how it felt in my house. Talisa and Eli were feeling nervous as they prepared for grade ten and grade five respectively. Eli, a little more so because he was also beginning his school year in a new school. ...
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In my previous post I shared that our family sets goals at the beginning of every year. Life is unpredictable and a little too tough at times, so it helps us to place some anchors into our dynamic especially for the children. One of those anchors is to have a great go-to song to carry us through the year. For those days when life doesn't make sense: when our children have to cope with twists without mum and dad because Savannah is in hospital, when we have to say no ...
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Here we are two days before Valentine's Day 2018. The invites for our Valentine's Day party (to take place on Saturday) have been sent. The party games have been arranged. The list of to do's is growing smaller. (Just remembered I didn't add *Get Eli's gift to the list*. Must do that. List growing longer.) Oh, and before you get comfortable please get a cuppa of your favourite something because I think this post is a little longer than usual. So Michael and I have never been big on Valentine's ...
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What a surprise for Michael and I to read Talisa's essay. Her teacher wrote"Look after Savannah - she is a blessing. Treasure what you guys have. I think with some polish you can be a great writer". I agree. Here it is.. Talisa's perspective. Who is Savannah? You may ask. Well she is my almost twenty year old sister. No biggie,right. You are probably thinking just a twenty year old girl in varsity who goes out to parties and gets her hair done every week at the salon. Just like ...
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Have you seen the beautiful video celebrating children with Down Syndrome? If you haven’t please watch it. It’s an internet sensation and I applaud the creators of the videos. You can view the video at the end of the post. When I first saw it, Michael and I were awake at three thirty on Monday morning with Savannah (our adult daughter with complex special needs) who couldn’t sleep. We found her in her wheelchair with her curtain completely drawn back, exposing her bedroom to the moonlight. She was looking outside ...
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I am a motivational speaker, an aspiring author and a blogger. I love, love to write but I had no idea that in my fortieth year, I would find the courage to take up my mantle as a full time inspirational speaker and writer. I did not begin my adult life planning to become an inspiration but God had his own plans for me. I grew up in an unhappy home and by the age of eighteen I became a mother. Being a teen mother was painfully difficult but learning ...
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Today is Good Friday in South Africa. We have always loved celebrating this day.  Amidst singing songs of worship all day (we love music), we have celebrated this day with a special meal of a roast leg of lamb for lunch and all the trimmings. Actually, since Savannah was seven years old I taught her to participate in preparing the lamb. There were so many reasons why this was an impossible feat for her. She had physical and sensory challenges. She had some language processing difficulties and her ability to ...
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To our daughter Savannah. Today the world celebrates Autism Awareness Day. We don't need a day to celebrate you. As an autistic person you have taught us so much about Love and Respect. You have challenged our way of thinking and being. You have taught us to let go of what is unnecessary in life and fight like crazy for what is worth living for. Family! As the world celebrates Autism Awareness, we celebrate our journey with you. We are bound to each others fate in a way only few ...
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On the 7th April 2018, Michael and I celebrated our seventeenth wedding anniversary. Under different circumstances; we might have been the type of people who absolutely made a fuss about our most special day. But we are living in this life and when we got married the honeymoon literally ended when we returned home to the news that my parents marriage was ending. A year later it felt awkward to celebrate our first anniversary as my mother moved out of her home and the reality of her being a divorcee ...
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What is it that makes you jump up and greet the day? What keeps you from giving into the fears that yell out to stop? How do you keep yourself motivated? I've stared down some dead ends and often when there was a choice to be made, it meant choosing between all tough alternatives. Even now, everyday I face the greatest and toughest challenge of all. Myself. I'm made up of too many things that tell me I should just accept mediocre. I should be satisfied with just being defined ...
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