About two months before Josh’s accident, we were dining in at one of our favorite and frequently visited pizza restaurants. Josh was eagerly trying his absolute best to grow his newly created dreads in his hair. I personally like dreads and told him I think he looked really good with them. Of course as his mother…he’s handsome no matter what he tried or how he looked. The wife of an elderly couple walking past us as they were leaving, stopped sill in her tracks and stared as hard as she could at my handsome son. She didn’t see me looking up at her because she was so engrossed in Joshua’s dreads sticking straight out. When you have short hair and welcome dreads in your head; you have to embrace the transitional season of each dread sticking straight out until they start to fall and lay down against your head. My mom heart wanted to ask her so bad what her problem was…but at that precise moment before opening my mouth…I realized Josh didn’t care what anyone thought or said because dreads is something he wanted so bad to try and he was making memories with what his heart desired…one of the things I always admired about him…not caring about what others thought, said, or felt about him. We didn’t get to see the fruit of the hours of labor of those dreads because they wouldn’t stay in real good, no matter how hard he tried, and he ended up cutting them all off and went back to his beautiful short hair.
The story of Joshua’s dreads reminded me of when I was a teenager in high school. I made some extraordinary memories with my mother that I wouldn’t trade for the world. She would sit in her wooden rocking chair in the living room and I would so excitedly sit on the floor right in front of her. She would spend an hour or so curling my hair. She would gather a small section of hair; curl it up with her finger and then hold it in place with two bobby pins criss-crossing. We would just talk. Sometimes I would want to fall asleep because having my hair curled just simply was relaxing. I would go to bed and in the morning when I woke up, me and my mother would take out all the many bobby pins and I would run my fingers through my hair, fluffing it up and bursting with a glorious smile as my star-lit eyes took hold of those golden, cascading spiral curls beautifully hanging with bounce and spring. I would feel so confident and on top of the world.
But you see, there were several girls at high school who always seemed to enjoy making fun of my hair and just point at me and then laugh at me….every single day I curled my hair. Did it bother me? Absolutely it did!! It would burn me up inside and I could never figure out why they chose to be so hateful and cruel. But I didn’t hate it enough to keep me from continuing to curl my hair because spending that most precious and special time with my mom and making extraordinary memories with her that made me feel so special and so beautiful, crushes and destroys the memories of the girls who apparently didn’t have anything better to do!! I have those amazing memories with my mom to cherish forever!
I’m also so blessed I have many amazingly rich and special memories of Josh and all the many I made with him.
Don’t let the cruelty of ignorant others crush and destroy the opportunities of making special memories in your heart and life. Those ignorant others will come and go in your life, but those special memories you choose to make, will forever stay in your heart.
So today as you read this blog…this is my heart encouraging your heart to choose making beautiful memories over what others think, feel, or say. Your heart will thank you for it.
Blessings ~ Audrey