When my Diddy was alive he had the huge box of family photos we have had since long before I was born. They were all kept loose in a Busch beer box that belonged to my uncle. One year for Christmas I sneaked the box out of his house and bought four nice photo albums and filled them with all the photos putting them in somewhat chronological order. Some pictures dated back to the Great Depression and were a compilation of our life history. After Diddy died the boxes of his stuff were shuffled between my house and my sister's house when she moved. We have been looking for them for them for years. Thanks to the new complicated procedures to obtain a simple driving permit I was forced to go through every box in my garage looking for Massey's birth certificate. The last box I dug through held the treasure...AND her birth certificate!
I spent hours going through these albums. I laughed, I teared up and often times cracked up...hence the above photo. It was at a family reunion before Tim and I were married. Tim was there but we had only been dating for a few months.
This picture SCREAMS "The Leach Family."
All three women to her right are my aunts. People just don't dress for the occasion these days like they used to.
My family has always been a crazy eclectic mix and I have followed tradition raising my own family. When I was little, our house was the one where everyone wanted to hang out and they were always welcome.
When my own kids were young it was full of sometimes ten kids on any given day...and they were always welcome (til they broke something important and then they scattered like the wind.)
It's nice to have that house where everyone wants to be. My house has never been a mansion, far from it. But it's not one of those houses where you can't eat in the living room. It's a house where you are welcome to eat or drink anything out of my humble kitchen. It's a house you can spend the night in and a house you can come to if you have nowhere else to go. One of Zach's friends got kicked out of his house after a fight with his father his senior year and finished school living in our spare bedroom. At least I knew he went to school every day and we even got him a cap and gown to walk in at graduation.
When I was little there were some friend's houses that had strict rules. You couldn't walk through the living room ...it was always vacuumed and if you tried they could see your footprints in the carpet that showed the fresh vacuum marks. Some kids had bedrooms that looked more like a room in a hotel than a kid's room. I remember one house in our neighborhood whose mother had a sign taped to her refrigerator "If you don't live here, don't open this door."
My house has always been open for any kid. Adults not so much, but kids should always have a place to go and my house was usually it. I'd rather have them all here than worry about where they were.
It's a different world than I was lucky enough to grow up in. It's full of temptations that weren't around in the sixties and seventies...or even the eighties or nineties. It's a world that is full of hate and world that tempt kids every day to do the wrong thing. If they feel comfortable and safe in my modest humble home, I welcome them with open arms and an open heart.
I'm not the greatest mother, but I'm not the worst. I aspire to be the best but often fall short. Most of the kids that hang at my house know me well enough that they know I have been through the wringer the past few years. They still come here.
I'm no "Ann Leach" (my own Momma) but I am Kelly Leach and learned from the best.
My kids make mistakes, so do I. Who am I to judge?
My youngest is a senior so I suppose this is my last year of "Open House."
Being honest, I'll miss it but also feel like these past sixteen years have been awesome. I've seen all these kids grow up in my house along with my own kids.
True to the times, one of them has already been killed in a senseless shooting.
It breaks my heart for the kids of today.
"Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today...
Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace...
You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one
Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world...
You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one."
Teens tend to think they are invincible and nothing can stop them. One bullet stopped my neighbor's son. I wish he had been at my house that night instead of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
You want to hold your kids close, but you can't. They wrestle themselves away from you in an attempt to grow up. Sometimes they do and unfortunately sometimes they don't.
My kids call me paranoid. I take that as a compliment.
My house is a mess and I know it. It's not a rats nest or filthy but simply a place where any kid is welcome. I think we need more places like my house!
I am worried about the world. I am worried about our kids. Heck I am worried about that $86 check I wrote at the grocery store yesterday.
The grand scheme of life in my mind is this... Live your life so that when you are gone a bunch of people will show up and say that you made a difference in their life.
What greater compliment could a person hope for?
Til next time...COTTON
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