So Many Changes

Just when summer gets perfect—fresh nights, soft sun, casual breezes,
crushingly full and quietly cooling trees, empty beaches, and free
weekends—it ends. Life is like that too. Just when we get it right, it
starts to change. The job gets easy and we know just how to do it, and
they tell us we’re retired. The children grow up and get reasonable
and they leave home, just when it’s nice to have them around . . . . That’s
life on the edge of autumn. And that’s beautiful—if we have the humility for it.

Joan Chittiste

Have been spending a lot of time going through old photos.  Looking for pictures of Miss Minga.  Remembering time of old when she was young and carefree.  And as I came across photos of me, I realized there was a time that I was young and carefree as well.  Many a time I said to Miss Minga, "You and I have grown old together." The Autumn of our lives had arrived; for her, sadly,  it her was Winter. 

So many changes.  We both got a little stiff in our limbs and getting up was getting harder to harder.  The gray roots began to show on my tinted hair; her whiskers made a downward turn.  Neither of us walked as fast as we once did and not as far without a rest.  Yes, change does happen.  Summer ends, Autumn begins, and life continues to go on.  And now, I prepare to enter my Winter without my best friend.

These pictures show some of the changes I went through as the years passed me by.  Hair color, style, weight.  Wow, so many changes.

 This was me with  my boys and one of their friends. .  Wow.  This was almost 30 years ago. I was still with my ex at the time

Was this really me?  Ah, youth. This was 1992.  Hubby and I had been together for a year, and Miss Minga had just joined our family. Didn't realize when we took this picture the parrot was over my head.  The parrot still hangs in my living room.

1994

This was taken in 1995 when we moved into our old apartment.  The coat is not real, but I remember how glamorous I felt.

1996

1998

With hubby and his mom in 2006.  I was a redhead back then.  

 My birthday in 2008.

With my boys 2013.

About a month ago.  I'm thinner now.

 Four Seasons fill the measure of the year;
There are four seasons in the mind of man:
He has his lusty Spring, when fancy clear
Takes in all beauty with an easy span:
He has his Summer, when luxuriously
Spring's honied cud of youthful thought he loves
To ruminate, and by such dreaming high
Is nearest unto heaven: quiet coves
His soul has in its Autumn, when his wings
He furleth close; contented so to look
On mists in idleness—to let fair things
Pass by unheeded as a threshold brook.
He has his Winter too of pale misfeature,
Or else he would forego his mortal nature.

John Keats