Happy 2017 Everyone!! in Majimaze Musing!

Hi there dear readers! Yes,it will be a challenge for so many in this New Year, however, I have reached that marvellous time in my life when my focus is on enjoying however long I have left in this world and just loving and thinking about all the wonderful people I know and have known.
First and foremost is my beloved family.I have my close family and a very large extended family.
This day, 50 years ago,I gave birth to our first child, a beautiful daughter, and we named her Janet Margaret after my Mum and my grandmother. I can hardly believe it myself that she is 50. She is still a most beautiful daughter in every way and my closest confidante and comforter since my beloved Richie ,my darling husband and father of my 3 children died over 10 years ago. I had been trying for a baby for 3 years and finally had my reward. She is a mother of 2 and partner of Bill and very busy District Nurse on this Island. Yesterday she worked for 11 hours,giving palliative care and dressing and medical care and had to admit people to hospital. I am so proud of her.
Today she starts a well deserved holiday with her family at their spread down country at Pokaka and they have something special planned.It is a 5 hour boat and drive down there on very busy highways and I pray all goes smoothly and safely.Happy Birthday my darling.

Then my Penny, separated from her hubby for nearly 5 years and mother of 3 gorgeous girls!!She is a huge success story, reinventing herself after a disastrous betrayal and separation, personal agony and near fatal heart attack,and becoming a fantastic Mum and supporting them all financially and in every way.She is now so positive and loving and has forged an excellent relationship with her ex and this has also benefited her lovely girls so much.I am so proud of her.

Then my Richard, my son. He is everything he wanted to be and a terrific man and father. He always wanted to be different and he really is.He is a contract fencer,has been divorced and now has a new lady and they are living in the far flung outposts of New Zealand, the Chatham Islands, 800 miles East of the South Islands of New Zealand. They are on Pitt Island fencing building and homesteading there for 4 months. And loving it! He has 4 children aged 26, 22 and 14 and 13 and just adores them and is missing them terribly. I am so proud of him.

Then I have 9 grandchildren and 1 great grandchild. And so many nephews nieces and grand nephews and nieces that I lose count! Ain’t I the luckiest woman in this world!!

I have very little money, just the pension and yet I am the richest woman as well.

And I have been loved and have loved and lost 3 most magnificent men. My Dad, who I adored and who adored me and who inspired me and then died when I was just 14. I still think of him every day and miss him terribly. He died 58 years ago. The hard lesson of loving and losing was starting.

Then comes my first fiance,Hank, a glorious Dutchman, whom I loved with all my heart and who died of cancer when he was 28 years old. I was 18. I miss him still and think of him often. he was the second one who taught me so much about loving and losing. A fine man.

And then of course, my late ,so beloved Richie , the biggest love of all and the hardest loss. We were married for 43 years.some of it was very diffcult.I was alcoholic for 10 years,then ditched it in 1980 and it remains one of the things of which I am most proud. He had many heart attacks , 3 of which I brought him back. I told God He was not having him yet! I absolutely adored my Richie and still do. He was a soldier a Steel Mill Superintendent , a farmer and the most magnificent man.Tall, blonde and with the most startling blue eyes , he taught me how to be me, how to slough off misfortune ,not dwell on mistakes and not getting what you want and to accept challenges and he loved me with all his heart and will always own my heart and is the person I most admire,respect and love. He taught himself to sail and he and I sailed for 20 years before he died on his boat in 2006, just anchored 1 km away.No man will ever measure up to him and I say that with all that is in me.He was a great father and is so sadly missed by his children and grandies. I am so proud to have been loved by him.

So that is me.

For 2017 and the world , I am not worried. Yes, things have changed, however not necessarily for the bad. Many of us honestly thought that the new President elect of the US was the pending end. I did not. The US election result and Brexit in the UK are change, and shows that many in this world WANTED change so badly they forced it. This is good. It is people power. The other changes that were so important are happening in the Middle East. All of it. War happens when one or millions of people want what the other person has. And war kills people and children and soldiers and messes everything up. I am saddened by all the conflict and deaths and homelessness and refugees. However, this is also change, and we all know change happens. Last , however, and most interestingly polarising , is climate change.This has been happening for millenia and is not new. We will cope as people have for millenia and believe me it is NOT the end of the world.

So my New Years message for all of you is stop complaining and panicking ,stop being hysterical and mourning about election results and get on with YOUR lives.Love deeply and well, abolish hatred in your sphere,cherish your family and concentrate on them , embrace change and all its challenges and know that 2017 is probably going to be the most INTERESTING year yet. THAT I Guarantee!!!! And have faith and hope!I do and God Blessxxxxx
Love,

Majimazexxxx