A funny thing happened when my dad bought a new computer this year with a much larger monitor: my mom started spending more time on the internet. She’ll search Google for topics she finds of interest and looks at the pictures and news posted to our family website.

She also started reading my blog.

Although I’ve kept a blog for many years I’ve never given much thought to my mom or dad coming across it till this year. It’s not that I’ve written anything I’d worry about them reading but I didn’t give much thought how it might influence or affect them.

A few months ago my mom read a post I wrote about my divorce and another about leaving a miserable job. I happened to speak with her on the phone that next weekend and I was surprised to hear that she was interested in what I’d written because it provided details she’d not heard before. Which makes sense because I didn’t live close to my family during these two difficult times in my life.

I told my mom during our conversations that “my blog is like a journal” to me and that I hope it lasted long enough for my kids to one day read. I asked my mom if she’d let me read parts of her journal, and I was shocked when she said yes. When my father flew up to visit us a few weeks ago he brought with him a handful of pages from her journal comprising the year 1987. This is the year after I graduated high school and began serving my mission in Germany.

My mom has the most gorgeous penmanship which was not handed down by gene or otherwise. She wrote mostly in dark ink on lined 3-ring binder paper but occasionally tossed in a colored marker to keep things interesting. I began reading her journal that afternoon and couldn’t put it down. I stayed up till 2 am until I’d finished reading every word. It was fascinating, encouraging and humbling. I learned a lot about my mom and our family. My mom is a kind person with a strong will and quick wit and that comes through in her writing style. We also have at least one more trait in common: we both enjoy writing.

Tonight I sealed her journal in a manilla envelope and will mail it back to her tomorrow. My hope is that she’ll continue to send me pages to read. I am not going pressure her, but I’ll be grateful for whatever she’s willing to send me. She’ll continue to read my blog and learn more about her son and I hope I’ll continue to learn more about her life and what it was like raising 5 kids on a teacher’s salary.

My mom is an amazing woman.

In the B.K. (before kids) era I convinced Kim that we should have a dog. It didn’t take much convincing because she grew up with a beagle and a shar pei. Most of her memories of these dogs were positive except the time the shar pei ate a litter of kittens.

We  spent weekends at the bookstore researching breeds and asking many owners how they felt about the breed they owned. After a lot of research we decided to get a boxer. Having a boxer puppy around the house was a lot of fun mixed with moments of frustration. She bonded with me during the first few years. I attended the puppy pre-school classes with her and she learned to obey me a little better than she did Kim. Maybe it had something to do with Kim not allowing her to sleep on the couch or beds.

But over the past few years she’s become very attached to Kim. Elka has a puffy bed I place between my computer and Kim’s yet Elka would rather lay on the hard carpet next to Kim’s feet. She’s excited when I come home from work but she prefers to follow Kim around the house watching her every move.

Our children adore Elka and she loves them back with lots of wet kisses. We feel safest when Elka is keeping watch over our kids as they play in our backyard, and Kim likes having a big dog in the house when I’m out of town.

When we picked her up from the breeder just over eight years ago, he told us that if we took care of her properly, we’d receive 10 times the love and companionship in return. I laughed it off at the time, but he he was right.

Except he was off by a factor of 10.