Story Care #1: Clarissa Rosebelle

Today as I was working on homework I began to smell the scent of garlic and tomato drifting from the kitchen. It was the sweet aroma of my little Clarissa making dinner without being asked. She is so dear to always notice where she can pitch in and help and does so without fanfare.

More often than I should I complain about how weary or stretched I am. Sometimes I sit and wonder if my children will grow up and give me grandchildren. Have I, at times, made parenting look so miserable that they will be inclined to opt out. I wonder?

But then I hear the children laughing and playing together, they are happy and they are content. They are good to one another and I think maybe I am not doing so terrible.

...maybe the deep breathing that I have mastered is working, ...maybe the many hymn's I hum to keep myself from saying the words that can not be taken back in times of temper.

Maybe, just maybe, I don't see the quality of my own motherhood.

I am temperamental, I am onry,
I am impatient, but my children are not.
They are calm, and sweet, and charitable.
I am thankful.


Clarissa was our belated Christmas gift.
She came the day after, keeping us in anticipation as we did not know if she would be a boy or a girl. Modest from the beginning she surprised us on the 26th of December.

I had read my great-grandmothers history the day before and when I saw her perfectly perfect little face I knew at once she was my little Clarissa Rose. She is named after both of her Great Grandmothers from my mothers line. She carries her names well as she is very spontaneous, full of comfort, loves to shop, hardworking and diligent. She is all of her grandmothers in one sweet package.

I love that she will lean over to kiss me a block from her school. She doesn't want to be seen kissing her mom, but she doesn't want to go to school without a kiss.

She still grabs my hand when we are at the Gateway shopping.

She listens to my complaints, then fills the foot bath with salts, has me take a rest and read my school book while she helps her brothers finish their chores or homework.

She reminds me everyday what God is like; He is hope, and love, and charity, and forgiveness. She is all of those things and she blesses our lives. I am thankful for her and today....my story of caring is dedicated to her today.

In the near 13 years of her life she has changed mine.

I am a better person because I have known her.
I may be her mother, but I look up to her.