Life and Death

It’s 3:41 a.m. and I am awake on a Saturday morning! I have been awake most of the night. My thoughts are all over the place. You see, I lost someone today and though my body is tired, my mind is in overdrive. This is not our first loss this month. On mother’s day weekend, one of our aunts lost her battle with pancreatic cancer. While we would never want her back in the shape she was in, there is now a void…..an empty place at the table…..an absence of one who was never still for very long….one who was talented and creative…..one who loved life and her family. My heart hurts for her sweet husband, her son, her grandchildren, her siblings, her in laws! I know in my mind that she would tell us that she is fine…..that she is beyond happy…..that she is bouncing down the streets of gold as I type….talking with Jesus and all who were there before her. I know all this in my heart and in my mind….we all do……but still we grieve!! We grieve for her presence here….her laugh….her willingness to help with whatever needs to be done…..her advice….her direction…..I miss you Helen!! Today’s loss is someone very dear to me……someone that feels not like a cousin, but a brother. It is unexpected as death sometimes is…….it is so very sad…..it is the very thing that awaits all of us at some point! As I have tried to wrap my mind around the idea that he is gone, I have had so many memories come flooding back. Memories all the way back to early childhood…..my entire childhood was so intertwined with him and his sister and brother, that I have no memory of a time when we weren’t together. I have been so blessed to have been raised with an extended family of cousins that you could never really tell where one of us stopped, and the other began. We were family….we could play, and work, and fight, and love like nobody’s business!! Some of my earliest memories with the cousins are of playing in the soft powdery dirt under my Granny’s front porch, and later on catching tadpoles in the deep ditch that you had to cross to get from their house to the old home place. Riding bicycles and horses, swimming in the creek and singing into the old metal blade oscillating fan, that one of the cousins had painted with bright glow in the dark paint. Walking bare foot after dark down the dirt road with no real destination in sight, just because we could!! Later on sneaking off to town and riding dirt roads. There was never an absence of something to do…..we played hard, but we worked hard too. One thing our childhood taught us was a work ethic. Living in the country, on a farm there was always something to do. Character was built as we worked in chicken houses and hauled hay and fed cows and plowed fields. We may have done a little complaining then but we grew up knowing how to work! As time passed and we went our separate ways….we didn’t see each other much, but when we did….we could just pick up where we left off. That’s how it is with people you love…..the miles and years can separate us, but those bonds are deep and true! I will always love you Dennis Paul…..and I will see you again!!! Death has a way of stopping us in our tracks…..it can happen so fast that we are left just trying to hang on. The fact of the matter is we will all come face to face with this at some unknown point. It is vitally important that we all prepare for that day. As the preacher who spoke at Helen’s home going celebration stated…..it is all about the dash…..that little mark that separates the date of our birth and the date of our death. What we do with the here and now will determine how we will spend eternity. I have wasted a lot of time in my life with things that were not really important in the big scheme of things….I don’t want that to be the rule of my life…….living my life in light of eternity is how I want to do it….knowing that one day soon, I will cross over and as soon as I see my Jesus, I’m going to be looking for those that got there before me……what a reunion that will be!!! If you don’t know my Jesus, ask me…..I would love to tell you about him!!! “And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.” Rev. 21:4

Another Day....another chance to.............

I haven’t blogged in awhile. I have every intention to do it more often…….then I don’t! Nothing earth shattering has been going on in my world. The daily grind….it’s…..well…..daily…..and…a….grind!! I seem to get up and go to work, and come home, and go to bed and do it all over again. I have tried to take the bull by the horns and add some life to my years recently!!! I have taken up knitting!! Maybe I should say I am trying to take up knitting. A dear friend and I have begun going to “knitting” classes on Saturdays when we can, and it is proving to be lots of fun!! I have already made three or four dishcloths and, though using the same pattern….not one of them look alike!!! Hmmmm….. I did say I was learning!! I am improving, my first dishcloth looked like a Christmas tree… It has been a really good outlet for a few hours on Saturday. There is just nothing like sitting around a big table with a bunch of other women……and we are not even eating!!!! I half way jokingly said that I needed to find something that I liked to do better than eating….and while I’m not so sure that I like this new hobby that well, I really am having a good time with it!! It is a really good cold weather hobby!! And it does cut down on the snacking I like to do at night, while watching TV. I may eventually have enough dishcloths to insulate my house, but I hope to progress to some scarf making at some point. Besides that, I have been trying to be healthier. I have cut out diet drinks and coffee for now and have been making better food choices. I keep thinking that I am going to wake up all skinny and fit one morning….so far that hasn’t happened! I may have to get on that dreaded treadmill!! I hate to exercise…..I mean I really hate it!! Of all the times I have tried to incorporate this discipline in my life, I have never,ever, in a million years felt any kind of “high” from it!! I think people who come up with that mess are a little whacked!!! I have felt beat up and like I’d been run over by a truck and drug a couple of blocks….I have been sweaty and winded and worn slap out, but never once has it felt good!! Anyway……I may have to try it again…..not because I think it’s going to make me feel good, but because I think I need to. I am of the mind with this sort of thing that I don’t know if it really makes you live longer, or if it just feels like you do!! Oh well, another day another chance to try to do it better!!! Maybe I will make a new goal to blog more……hmmmm!!! “…..His mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning…..” Lamentation 3:23