Mama’s Hands

While having lunch with my sister, we were talking about the big adventure I was about to embark on. Leaving my hometown in California where all my friends and family reside, to move across the country to a beautiful small town in Pennsylvania called Wyalusing. During our lunch, my sister suggested I start a blog to document my adventure and “new life” in PA. But before I document all this new adventure has to offer and the journey I will be on, I should explain a bit about me - who I am and how I got to where I am now. So here I go...

It’s been a little over 6 years since I felt Mama’s hands. The safety and security I felt just by her touch I haven’t felt again since the day she went to Heaven in late October of 2013. Though I didn’t deserve it, she always met me with open arms and a warm embrace. She was my best friend and greatest example of a kind, loving, selfless, God-fearing woman. She taught me how to be a wife and mother and each day I aspire to be more like her. Since she left this earth, so much in my life has changed. 

I met and married the man my mom would have said is perfect for me (and she was right). 5 years ago I became a wife and 3 years ago I gave birth to my first child. My husbands name is William “Will” Keeler and I’m so proud to be his Mrs. My husband has 2 children from a previous marriage named Jaeda and Andre. When I got married I didn’t just become a wife, I became a step-mom as well, yet I am the only mother these kids have known for the past 5 years. Since my wedding day I have been simply and wonderfully known as “Mom” to these 2 precious kids. 

3 years ago I gave birth to my first child, a baby girl we named after my mother- Cynthia Grace (although we call her “Gracie”). Giving birth to my first child, a daughter that my mom and I had always prayed for, changed me...losing my mother changed me. Having a baby that’s directly connected to my mother and named after her changed me.  That is something indescribably beautiful that will forever be tattooed in my heart.  When we found out I was pregnant for a 2nd time and it was another girl, I had no idea what we’d name her to ensure her name would be just as special as Gracie’s.  

Before we found out we were having another girl, my husband said he wanted the baby’s middle name to be Joy if it was a girl. With my first daughter being named after my mom, how would we pick a name just as special for our 2nd little girl? I remembered a conversation my mother and I had on the couch in her living room a year before she passed away. We were dreaming of the day I’d be a mother myself and what I’d name my own little girls if ever I had them. When my mother named me, she picked a “C” name for me so that we’d both have “C” names (Cynthia, Christina) and I wanted to do the same which is partly why my firstborn is named Cynthia Grace instead of Grace Cynthia so that she’d have a “C” name like me. During our conversation, my mother said she always loved the name Charlotte with the nickname “Charlie”. I said “oh no way, I don’t like that name at all! I want to name my daughter after you and also name her Grace but call her Gracie”. She loved that name and was honored that I’d want to name my baby after her. She then said “but what if you have 2 daughters?”  I said, “I’ll just be blessed to have 1 - I don’t think I’ll get to have 2”. She smiled and lovingly said, “You never know”. Before I became pregnant for a 2nd time, I grew to love the name Charlotte and as Will and I went through names we kept coming back to Charlotte Joy.  Thus, 1 year ago we had our 2nd daughter whom we named Charlotte Joy and we lovingly call her “Joy”, “Charlie”, or “Charlie Joy” (she has a lot of nicknames). 

And so, this is how I became my mother’s daughter to a wife & mother in the now Keeler family of 6...