Steel Magnolias

It should read, "I would rather have 30 minutes of wonderful..."

 Steel Magnolias, it has to be one of my all time favorite movies, if you know me, you know how much I love this movie and that I've seen it like a million times and can recite it verbatim.
The movie came out in '89, I was in junior high getting ready to go into high school.  The movie has meant different things to me at different stages of my life.  In high school it was a movie about great friends supporting each other through some of the most trying times of their lives.  Later in adulthood the movie was about how friends needed to some times "get into" each others business because they loved them. However, as a mother, I think I got more of Sally Field's character.  The most poignant scene for me was at her daughter's gravesite when she kind of had a "bipolar" moment, she was solemn and composed and then cried and screamed with anger, asking "why", only to composed herself again and then have a laughing fit with friends.  It just reminded me of the roller coasters of emotions that I personally go through in the days and months since Eva's passing.  Although, I no longer had that group of girlfriends, I had my husband with me and I've had his friendship through this all.  That scene, also had some powerful words to remember, like:

"I realize as a woman how lucky I am, I was there when that wonderful creature drifted into my life and I was there when she drifted out"

I was there when Eva "drifted" into my life and I was "there" when she passed, well at least I felt her still warm body after she passed, I think she knew to leave me before because I couldn't or wouldn't say goodbye so easily.

In these days and weeks before baby Camila comes, I guess I am more emotional, more pensive (than usual anyway).  I know I've said it before either to you personally or through my blog, but I value my private time to cry or to have my outbursts of emotions, I'm not exactly comfortable with doing it out in front of "the world".  I'm grateful for this time with my little family.

I have valued all of my children's births, that time in the hospital to hold them and marvel over them, it has been important to me.  This time around, I have a rambunctious, fun loving little 2 year old at home, who I know I will be comforting as the reality of his little sister coming to live with us, hits him.  So that time with Mila in the hospital will be nice for me (and Jose).  We need to welcome her in our own way.

I want to leave you with this smiling picture of Eva, she had just gotten her hair braided by my cousin, her Tia.  This picture makes me think that this is how she will be smiling as we welcome her baby sister into our family!

So I leave you with one of my other favorite quotes from the movie, where Julia Roberts' character tells her mother why its important for her to be a mother despite the "danger" associated with it.  I have thought of this quote many many times in my time as a mother!

"I would rather have 30 minutes of wonderful than a lifetime of nothing special"

I miss you my sweet girl!!

Thank you Tia Aurora for my braids!