Reverting back to my typical 'busy' self, I withdrew into my own little projects, which included curling up on the couch to heal, and I stopped writing.
I busied myself - just organizing what-nots - and curled up and propped up a lot, to nurse this pain in my rib - and surfed a lot. Some of that surfing took me to discussions about depression. How depressing. Why do most of the talking heads and doc shows think that meds will solve it all? Roger was not that way and I am not either. That is one thing that we FOR SURE had in common. Meds for a short while if at all was our motto - and boy, I want it to stay mine.
So, pretty quickly I got busy. Got off that couch and packed my bag. Sore as could be, I determined NOT to cancel my commitment for chalking the road at Marietta Square. Lila and I had planned this trip and a little rib and a bit of 'woe is me' (depression ???) was not about to stop me. Roger would have said to go but to be careful. Of course! I think I am always careful!
I've been back in town almost a week, but still, no writing. Maybe I have forgotten all of my wonderful thoughts and observations? Maybe I just don't want to be on the couch anymore?
Maybe I just filled my calendar as a way of avoiding the remembering and thinking ...and tears.
Today I decided to just face it and catch up. After all, the memories are what I have and painful or not, I don't ever want to forget. Writing will preserve it, I hope!
Today was good. It was busy, but good busy. I made that forever long journey over to my favorite school - TMA, of course! I love 'my people' over there! The hugs were wonderful and I did not cry, though I really really needed to! The great welcomes make me think about how it will be one day when I reach Heaven. God gives us people here to prepare us for the end of the journey. I have great people and I surely hope I greet others as wonderfully as they greet me!
I want Jesus to say - "Wow, I've been waiting so long to see you here!" I want Him to be happy at the way I lived this life He gave me. (Yes, even though most days, I can be done - now I know how daddy felt - it just isn't the same when half of you is missing.)
Driving home this evening the sky turned from a light gray blue to blue to pink to purple and then the most brilliant fuscia I have seen in a long time. Off in the distance I saw smoke. And there they went - tears. Good grief, middle of 408 and blurry vision. Not ideal.
That smoke made me start wondering. Was it a house fire? A woods fire? A chemical fire? Had the engines arrived? Had they put water on that fire? Roger could - and would- have told me all of that. He would likely have even known pretty accurately where the fire was.
How many times did he point out fires and how you could tell what kind of fire it was, if they had engaged the hoses, how long it had been burning or if it was almost out. He knew fire. But 42 years of instruction did not make me any closer to knowing what I was looking at. And that is what made me cry.
Roger's Lesson: He would point out that so often God gives us the same instruction over and over and over - always patiently - and yet so often, we never get it. We never apply it, but we should. And he would tell me that I was hearing but I was not listening.
It makes me really sad that I think I have done a lot of that in life.
Maybe I won't ever need to look across the horizon and see smoke and need to know what kind of fire I see, but I would probably have happier memories if I could.
I do know that when you see what looks like a fluffy white cloud drifting from earth to sky, then it means that there is water on the fire. Steam, you know! I did listen sometimes!
Roger was not the kind of teacher who yelled things at you over and over. He taught well about the things that he loved. Find a passion...something worth dying for. His was fighting fires and saving lives ...saving lives in eternal ways too - he knew the way and pointed others that way too.
Now to just keep things safe around here so he does not 'look down' and say - "that Judi - she's burning up the whole house!"
Well, with my firefighter around, that wouldn't happen now, would it!?
I have to hope that I was listening!
:-)))
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