The Dream of a Yacht Trip, Written By Bambi Lynn

I recently purchase a story kind of game from Amazon. The Storymatic-six trillion stories in a box, which one will you tell?  I brought it for conversation when I will invite people over my apartment for dinner. I started looking at the questions, I realized I would have a lot of blog writing from this box. The Question that struck me,

                                    What is something you want to see before you Die? 

                                                                   WHY?

 I knew immediately my answer, Spend time on a Yacht with all my children and grandchildren with coaches, councilors and therapist. I am not sure about the spouses in the beginning but, maybe when we sit together and hash out life as a family. Then have them come on the Yacht

I spent a great amount of my life as a single mom. I was married 2 1/2 times {one ended in an annulment} I was blessed with six amazing children. But as amazing as I think they are, They May not think the same thing. My parenting started at a ripe old age of sixteen. Finding out I was pregnant in a psychiatric center because the day before that I was standing on a bridge, ready to end my life for the third time. The other three children were born just after I had turned twenty-two years of age. Then my twins were born when I was twenty-nine years old. So, six children before thirty. That may not be a lot to some, but it is to a woman who was so broken, that her brokenness spilled over into parenting and in return a lot of hurt was distributed to the six little beings that I love deeply.

Each one of my children got different versions of me and some of the versions were not the best. I had gone through a lot as a little girl and in my marriages that there were times, I couldn't find myself.  My marriages ended for infidelity and domestic violence. My children saw way too much and experienced more. One of my daughters just recently share with me, that she had made a list when she was thirteen why she didn't want to live with me anymore and wanted to move in with her dad. One of the reasons was because she knew I was being hit, and another was because she felt I didn't understand her. Eye opener because she was right, I knew I didn't understand myself let alone understand my children. I have had growth and healing because it didn't bother me that she told me that. I tried so hard but the weight of the past and the present got me to never get above water to breath.

As a mom I thought that all my mistakes would be made up with all the things I did better than the generation before me. I thought homeschooling and having them raised in the church, vacations and activities would make up for my shortcomings. I thought that I hid my abuse and sadness better but, children know and can feel it even if they don't see it. I would always say, "I raised them all the same" but, in reality our children get different versions of us. Where they were born in our healing, there birth order, and our reaction to them, plays apart on their feelings on where they stood. Some things I would of love to know then, maybe I could have seen their broken hearts.

When three of my children moved out of my home, that day will always be etched in my mind as the darkest day I have lived through. They were tired of the abuse in our home and me not leaving. They also wanted freedom that I didn't give them because of my Christian beliefs and trying to keep them from my mistakes. Something my mother did to me but, I thought my children would understand better than I did as a child. That move I believe put a divide even further apart and has never been totally recovered. I think it put conditions on our relationship, and I could never live up to them and created opportunities for the relationships not to grow. My heart carries a hole in it for my children that the relationship isn't there.

The years go by, and I continue to learn more about childhood trauma. The development of a child that has experienced things they were never meant to go through, how it effects every part of their being. How their brain didn't develop properly because it was blinded by abuse. The things that as parents we wished we would have known then what we know now. I know that every parent that has estranged children, think could of, should of and would of, and if only.

So many years have gone by, and all my children are married or living on their own. each one is going through their own valleys and their own journeys of healing. Each one has their own children that one day, they will unravel their lives and stand in forgiving themselves and saying, "sorry" to their own children for the mistakes they have made in their own homes because like the generations before them and after them they will have some healing to do. This gets me to the question, "what is something you want to see before you die?

I want to fight it out! I want to say." I am sorry" I want the family that I dreamed of as a little girl. I would love to say, "If only what was said could be taken back. And if only what was done could be undone" Then have the life coach divide us up for life sessions. To have some lessons given to us on forgiveness and given all of us a voice. I would love great food and conversation stations that bring healing to my broken family. I don't want to die with unanswered questions and regrets. I don't want my children to ever think I didn't love them, and I don't want them to live as if I didn't.

Some of my children know this is something I want; I have told them. I don't want any villains in my life only heroes. Their response is a Yacht isn't a good idea, because someone would go overboard, Maybe I would have a better chance with a condo on the beach, or a beach house. A mom can dream!

 This is the last picture of my children together and that was five years ago, at one of my son's weddings. I wasn't there

The time before my children were all together was at the funeral of my grandson, Isaac

 I guess they saying is correct, families only get together for weddings and funerals. At least that's what it looks like in my family