Memorials

May 25, 2015

It is Memorial Day.  I did something today that I have not done in a while.

I turned on the History Channel and tuned into the War with Germany .... better known as WWII.

It took the better part of the day, but I hung in there for most of the battles, and especially the end.

Roger would have been tuned in - not like he did not have that war memorized beginning to end.
It brought such a range of emotions. Thankfulness for those men, mostly really young men,  who left homes, farms, cities, from across the nation to answer the call to serve.  The enemy was really big.

Roger's dad fought in  Europe.  My dad fought in the Pacific. We both have many relatives who did the same.  His Aunt was a nurse and had her ship blown out from under her. I watched the U-boats and wolf-packs this afternoon.  There is no way we can come close to imagining life as it was in that time period.    Daddy would say that he went because it was important to keep evil 'on the other side of the pond' - meaning that he did not want to see it in his homeland, so he would go and fight over there.

Roger's fascination with that war stemmed from the people who he cared about who were in it. While scanning things this week, I found a letter his dad sent to his mother from Germany. And the telegram that said simply "civilian again, meet me at......terminal"  

Treasures.   Yet neither of our fathers talked enough about that war that we have any real idea of where they were or what they were doing much less what they were feeling or the horror they saw.  They would say that it was too much to talk about.  (From the images on tv today, I would have to agree - they interviewed some Vets - wow - there are few left from WWII)

Roger also saw the bigger picture. He saw the immense evil - flesh and blood, yes, but lead by the powers of darkness in this world.   All wars - all criminal activity is that, after all. Roger could point to the spiritual darkness in high places throughout history, and even in the history we are living. He was pretty insightful.

Another interesting point I discerned today was creativity. Need drove men to be creative and inventive and to come up with new ideas in order to have the equipment needed to get the job done. In and out. It did not even take a decade.

Wow, life is so fast paced today, yet so much is so slow - so much red tape - war / conflicts take so long.   And young men, and women, still serve, because they feel that call to keep us free.  There is no draft these days, so I think that those who choose to serve have much bigger hearts than at any time in history. Because they don't HAVE to do it.

I also spent time today thinking about lives lost. I re-lived D-Day (on TV) - and the open targets.  Having walked those beach-heads gave me a new appreciation for what I was watching today.  Learning more about the plan as an adult, gave me more insight and appreciation that when I was studying it for a grade.  Good reason to travel to places that mean something to you!

I always wanted to do that tour with Roger. It is one thing I wish I had pushed for instead of agreeing to wait until he retired.

It's been well over a year, and there are still things that I have not packed away. I've been working on that this week. I've had this weird need to scan practically everything he ever touched and everything that was written to us about him.  I have a new appreciation for cards.  In Feb 2104 when the cards started rolling in, I read each one, cried often, laughed, thanked God for each person in his life. And I put them in a basket. I've seen that basket of cards almost every day for over a year.

Today I read each one again as I scanned the messages. They made me thankful. They made me think of each writer and Roger's connection with them. It also made me think that those same cards could have been written only yesterday, and might have said the exact same thing. Because lives intertwined in some unusual, sometimes miraculous, way.

Roger did not live a long life by today's standards. 85-90 is not all that unusual today. I read of someone celebrating 116 this past week.Yikes!  No, 71 was still way too young in our minds. It makes no difference that his dad was 70 and his mother was 90. Roger never seemed more than 60!   (Young wife, he always claimed!)

But he did live a full life and an happy and eventful life.  And those messages reflected that over and over - and it made me very, very thankful to read them.

I'm not the world's greatest at getting cards out in a timely manner, but I do know this....telling a story about how you interacted with the person who recently passed, is a most remarkable gift to leave for the family.  Those stories never get old. Those cards stay around, or get scanned, and in my case, I am hoping they make it into a photo book of Roger's remarkable life.

Roger's Lesson:  It is not the things you do, it is the people you meet. Meet as many as you can, be sure that they know that Heaven is a option for their eternal home, and you'll have a great time for eternity for there will be a whole lot of people up there that you know! 

Not a bad plan at all, Roger!

And I am pretty sure he will meet a lot of Civil War and WWII folks up there that he has read a lot about - for he found them to be the most interesting conflicts of earthly history for his personal life story.

For all who served, lived, and died for the freedoms we still enjoy today, I am thankful.
And it is something we must never take for granted.

I also hung a new flag today. I removed the one that I hung for Roger a year ago. It has weathered the storms of life and I will not have a tattered flag flying. It will be properly retired. The new one would make Roger proud. It is for Matthew.  He does not HAVE to serve. But he is.  And I pray for him and his safety every single day. I pray that God places a hedge of protection around him and he stands in the gap for us. All of us. Even the ones who don't care about what it takes to be free.

Memorial Day. Memories of those who died for our freedoms.
Memorial Day. Prayers for those who serve and who need God's strength and strong faith in order to do it.

Dry Bones - and Fluid ?

May 24, 2015

You would definitely have to know what you are looking at to know what this image is. Hint. A bone. I got that much from anatomy class - or maybe from drawing skeletons for art classes.

Beyond that, it is going to have to take a pretty well trained eye to see where the fracture is and if it is healed.  Grey, white, black ....I know they all mean something on these many x-ray films in my packet, but I don't know what!

And spots...they should be looking for spots, or hopefully, healed over spots that they called lesions in Janary.  The bone cancer.

Oh how I appreciate the prayers that have gone into this healing. Prayers not only for the treatments to be effective in healing these cancerous lesions on my bones but also for me to re-focus on the things that are really important in life.

I always think I have a grip on that, but oh how easily I slip back into that world of organizing and projects and picking up and going and doing....instead of being still and listening....hearing.

The other battle is the fluid. That is the scary one for me for the most ridiculous of reasons. I have actually been able to feel the drying effect as my body has begun restoring my lymphatic system to its normal, not quite normal state. The overload of fluid that my body was producing (toxins, dead cells being cast off, etc) seems to have been normalized enough to not be pushing it into the pleural cavity.

Imagine - prior to January, I'm not sure I even knew what a pleural cavity was! I knew pleurisy from reading it in a novel once upon a time, but that was my limit!  Now my little catheter tubes have almost become a part of me.

One thing these little tubes have done is make me go back and remember those days when I had little fingers and toes growing inside of me - and at times prying my ribs apart. Moms know the feeling, right? You could eventually move those little digits around, but not these tubes!  So, breathing deeply hurts, but there are worse hurts in the world.

For some reason I have been so very apprehensive about this upcoming surgery, even though it is outpatient. I have not turned on the news or had any celebrity disasters entering my airwaves, but still...I know it is a control thing. I just know it. I do not like and never have liked the idea of being 'put under' and trusting my life to someone I don't even know.

I know that in the morning I will quiz everyone I meet about their OCD levels. I will hopefully encourage and inspire them and thank them for coming to work prepared and alert. I will have my girls at my side for as long as I am allowed. But then...they will wheel me away.

I am praying that my body has not created an abundance of scar tissue during these months, and that the surgeon will be super gentle while pulling those things out of this aging body. I am praying for a wee tiny hole on each side, near my lungs, but not touching them.  

I am also praying that as they do tests, that if anything new has arisen, even though we are praying against it, that it will be revealed in an early stage.

And I am praying that I will be calm and peaceful, which I really try to be, because ultimately, my life is in God's hands, and the surgeon's should be also.....so I am definitely praying for that! (And the anesthesiologist!)

So why so antsy still? I don't know! The girls told me tonight that I was not like this in January. Reflecting back, with double malignancies on my record, I suppose I had gathered that it was only a matter of time til I departed, so now was as good and later. (January)
Today, I feel a lot better and really do desire to hang in here until the Rapture, so maybe that is my hangup.  Oh. My. Goodness.   Crazy Lady!

And it is always that control thing.  Focus! God numbers your days. Man might be involved at times, but ultimately, God's got the plan!

Roger's Lesson:  These people who are taking care of you are as passionate about what they do as you ever were about teaching art or creating stage sets or travel. Ask God to lead them and then leave them alone. 
I know what he would be telling me! - "So let them do what they know to do and you just use your energies resting in the Lord.  Sleep lightly and wake up quickly, unlike your typical style of sleep."

As I am proofing and finishing up this entry, I find myself laughing at how ridiculous it is that I have let myself get rather distressed about this whole thing.  I  know without a doubt that God allowed me these three extra weeks for side #2 to dry up so that I could get good and ready to have these tubes OUT.

All the while, I am really thankful for the wisdom of my kiddos, who suggested that I might not want to get one tube out and then go back for a second surgery only two to three weeks later.   They might have been saving themselves the stress - but I know they saved it for me. Wise decision to wait.

Now, I must let my mind rest so I am ready for a great big, beautiful tomorrow!  God has something wonderful for us each and every day - so Tuesday Morning - I'll be waiting for you at 6:30 .....

Let's do this!
And 7 am - 9 am on Tuesday, May 26....I'm still happy to accept all prayers being offered for the old gal - for clean and precise removal and a quick wake up - with no drama.

God's got a lot going on this side of Heaven, and I really would like to be in on it!

Blessings!

Report Time

May 17, 2015

If you are from my generation and lived in Orlando, you probably have seen these!  In my quest to win over the paper war, I have been scanning stuff. All kinds of stuff.

Nani (Roger's mom) saved a lot of paper. I just filed it when it came my way. He would have tossed it.  Ha! It makes me pretty happy today that Roger had me. I discovered some mighty interesting things about my man when reading through these things.

I discovered that as a child in school, he was not a lot unlike me. Or, since he was so much older, I was not a lot unlike him! Different ways, but oh so similar.

"Roger needs to stay focused on his work and stop visiting"  (Mine said things like - "Judy needs to stop daydreaming and do her work")

Yet, his 2nd grade teacher called him a lonely child. And several commented that he needed to do better in math and practice his handwriting.  (I am all with them on the handwriting part - he always printed, never did conquer cursive!)

What struck me though, was that here - decades later, still on the paper in proper cursive with fountain pen ink - are words that could have set the destiny for a young child. Some of the comments were pretty harsh - I might have stated them in a personal conference, but not in writing.

Somewhere along the line, I read my grade school comments and determined that as a teacher I would do my best to only put positive things in writing - and that if something hard to hear had to be said, it would be prefaced with something positive.

It also struck me that Roger did not give into what might have been written about him - and quite possibly his mother never showed it to him, but quite possibly both parents told him to grow into the man he was meant to be come. They believed in him. They only had one child, so they had the energy for him, for sure.

As our girls were growing up, I would stress more over 'wasted time' and lower grades than Roger ever did. We had polar opposites. Social butterfly. Studious one. Both perfect, of course, in our eyes!   Roger would just laugh and say it would all work out and they would become who God intended for them to be, that other things were more important measures of a child than just grades.  He was right.

I wonder though, how many people take a course in life that was determined by something that was said or written about their abilities. It breaks my heart to watch kids, after they graduate, go into this struggle to find themselves, because they never seemed to gain confidence in something while in high school. Sometimes the struggle takes years. Sometimes, they give it up and just settle.

Above most other things I ever did, I hope that I encouraged.

Roger's Lesson:  The only written word you ought to take to heart is what is written in the Bible. It is the best life manual you could ever have, and leads you to the right answers. Don't settle for what man tells you - not bad, and not good either.  Don't base your whole life on accolades from a long time ago. Do what you do for a higher purpose and you will always be happy. It is just one of those decisions you need to make in life. 

Clearly Roger did not settle for what was written on his report cards. He was one of the most intelligent and interesting people I have ever met in my life. He knew more about history and politics than any professor I ever had. He knew the Space Center inside and out, or so we have been told. He studied things like building plans in case there was ever a need to know - which there was, and he knew.  He was an amazing leader and mentor to many (we were told that as well) - yet to us, he was dad, and good ole Rog.  He laughed a lot and enjoyed life to the fullest and always believed that happiness was a personal decision and not based on what was going on around you. And he believed in others and what they had the ability to achieve.


And as for me and  "Judy needs to stop daydreaming...."  That comment used to annoy me.
Until Friday.  TMA folks know what I mean.
Dreaming and having a vision for something wonderful turned into a surprise that never was on my radar. And the really neat thing is that the vision was for people I possibly would never even know.
And that is how you know God put those dreams in your heart and mind - because it isn't for you.

Dream, people...ask God to give you a vision....become more than what a report says that you are. Keep growing, keep believing, and when you write about someone, look for the positive.
But always remember that God is bigger than any report. Any report, negative or positive!
Every day is a new one, so do something important with it!

Caught Speechless

May 15, 2015

It started out like an ordinary day. It was "the day after."  After Zometa.  That typically meant a fair amount of pain and the desire, if not need, to stay curled up on the couch all day.

I did rest yesterday, but it did not help as much as I had hoped.  I got up today, but went back to bed.  The alarm reminded me that I had an appointment. A lunch meeting. I had agreed a week ago, because it fit Mitch's schedule - super busy that he is these days. It was important. About travel.

But this morning, travel did not seem all that important to me. Thank goodness Karin suggested a little trip to the Farmer's Market. I got up for her - so she could get coffee.  But seriously - I could have easily remained in bed.

Roger's Lesson:  Get upright. Most of the time if you just get up and moving, you will feel better than you did when you thought that rest was what you needed. Wrong. It is what you desired.  Get around people and you will feel better - and surprising things will happen during  your day. 

Yes, I did sort of hear his voice in my ear this morning. Thankfully, I listened. And acted.

Market. Check √.  Shower and dress. Check √.  In the car and moving forward. Check √
oh...meds taken - and vitamins - Check √.  TMA / Lunch. Check √

Lunch was nice. Travel plans resolved. We dodged the rain and I was asked to wait while he parked the car. Sure, I can always find someone to chat with - even though I really wanted to find a couch.  
"Come - I want to show you something in the gym" - ok, I strolled over, thinking that since I was halfway there I could go visit Rachel. I missed her on the last trip to TMA.

New stuff in the gym - nice -  the TMA gym always looks grand. One of the best gyms in town, if not the best, in my personal opinion.  I love the way God provided the money for that gym. Best part of the gym story!

"Here - sit here for a minute" -- all of a sudden something seemed odd. I was planning to go home after lunch and Mitch was trying to get me to stay.  Odd. Indeed.  Different people stopped by to chat, so I did not think about it too much at the moment - but now, I can see that 'plan.'  

It is so interesting the way you can see things in hind-sight even when they were right in front of your face in the moment. I have been absorbed lately in really appreciating that I have been able to see God's hand in things sort of 'in the moment' as some big decisions were being made. I had forgotten about hind-sight. I surely missed the 'in the moment' part today!

And I was not very focused, when perhaps I should have been.

Oh no - awards ceremony was about to begin. How was I going to get out and not be distracting. This is the kids day -  well, I have known some of the kids since they were little bitty, so it would be fine to stay - except that I was getting very tired.

And then it began....I heard the welcome and then words like "founder' and "25 years" and then art teacher. What?
I actually enjoy listening to Dr. Harris tell Fine Arts stories. He makes them sound so funny.  Things that I thought were so serious at the time....he makes me laugh about them. Laughter is good.
Interesting start to a high school awards event....perhaps he is going to mention the new building and tell when the groundbreaking will be.

Yea! I can't wait for that day. I heard about it when I was just out of the hospital and I have to admit that the idea of seeing dirt turned over for a Fine Art building had me so excited that I just knew it would be one of those things that would keep me pushing so I would live to see it.   And hopefully experience it. I even asked if I could please be invited on that day! (That is a whole other story called 'death of a dream'....and for another day. )

But no....he was not talking about dirt.
It is not often that I am totally clueless about things that are happening either - but boy, I missed a lot this time!
It is not often that I am left speechless, but Dr. Harris got me today.

This is the most amazing thing and nothing I would have ever considered happening.  This never crossed my radar, for sure!

This new building - this is about the kids  - and the many parents and friends who support those kids in their efforts to develop the talents God placed within them.

The seniors will graduate and those who follow will get to enjoy this new building. Those who went before - dreamed, and graduated, and many who even have children at TMA today - those are the ones who created the need for a building.

And the teachers who train up these young talents - art, music, drama - have huge jobs, but huge rewards, for they will get to see the young talent bloom and grow.

For the evening, I got to enjoy the TMA production of "Cinderella" - the original version.  It is so sweet to enjoy those shows with my family, children and grandchildren. Live anything always beats video! I am thankful they enjoy live theatre as much as I do.

Another blessing was getting to enjoy dinner and the show with 'other family' - TMA family. When you work together and grow together - you get to say family.  And a blessing for another reason...when you get to help discover talent...and then get to watch that talent grow....well, that is a pretty big blessing.  And it was special, Tiffany, to see you coming full circle -TMA grad, Rollins grad, and back to TMA to assist the next generation.  True generosity!

I still have not absorbed the happenings of this day.  I feel so humbled and it feels totally weird to have my name on anything, much less a theatre. But I also feel so blessed. I feel so blessed by the many lives - kids and adults - that I have met through this place where God chose to plant me.  I am so thankful that it was the right place for educating our own children, for I would not have been there otherwise - for their needs came first.  I am thankful for the many friends they made there and the way they grew.  I am thankful that Roger was supportive and involved for so many years, because he believed in this crazy idea of starting a school.  I am thankful for a man (Pat) who took a chance with a crazy teacher and just said - "go do it' "Make it happen" - without hovering!  Talk about trust.

TMA has grown in almost 30 years, much like the students have. God has blessed and I have no doubt that as long as He remains most important in a student's education, that TMA will continue to be blessed. My prayer for the teachers, students and leadership is that they always strive to prepare the whole student, and to do it with God's leading. Always.  God has plenty of blessings to go around.

And I guess that  my message in all of this is to have a vision.  Try to see something that others do not see. Push kids to go beyond what they think is possible. Teach them to work like a professional even though they have not achieved that status yet. Invest in people who have a passion and are willing to let God lead.

And most of all - trust God.  He may not do things in our timing, but He does things when HIS timing is perfect.

And as soon as all of the red tape is resolved....TMA is going to have a groundbreaking.
And I hope they tell me in plenty of time, because there are a whole lot of TMA fine arts alumni out there who need to be there!

And I hope they have a whole lot of shovels.

And as much as I am so humbled about the Theater - I am ever more excited for the students and families who will enjoy this great new adventure at TMA!

(Check out the building plans at www.MastersAcademy.org)

You never know what God is going to bring your way in the course of a day.

Even a very tired day!

The Big Z

May 14, 2015

It is the fourth time around. Maybe I will weather the storm a little better this time. It is that flu like pain - good pain, they call it. Does anyone like 'flu-like' pain?  I think not.

But this time I have a different perspective. Kristin has been fighting off "the bug." At least I am not fighting bugs. At least this passes in a day or two. The hack -cough that she has just lingers until it feels like moving on.  She does not act like it, nor slow down, but she has to be exhausted.

So why should I complain?   I'm not, this time.  This is a mind game, so they say.  Mind over matter. Mind over Zometa.

Let Aleve be your friend.

I commented to Karin that the bag of clear stuff that looks like water is so interesting. I mean, what is it exactly that allows something that looks as innocent as water to make your bones grow.   It seems like it should be a color or something.

I don't know how it works, but I know that I am very thankful for those people who have scientific minds and just have to try to figure things out. I am thankful that they figured out a way to take the same stuff that makes a kid's bones grow strong and put it in a bag to help an old lady like me.

No more aquifer bones for me....well, soon, I hope.  I'm not even halfway there, yet I have made it much farther along than I expected in January.  Thank you.....Lord....and prayer warriors.

Typically I would go home and curl up on the couch, and wait out the next 48 hours, pain and all.

This time. I'm taking a different route. There is living to do. I will rest also, but not all the time. There are more important things happening, so I can't bear to shut the world out.

Roger's Lesson:  Balance. Be sure to rest and let the meds work, but keep on living. For as long as your feet are on this earth, there are people to see and living to do.

So, I rest up after the drip, then have a quiet evening, for I have a very busy Friday. The calendar just fell that way, and with all that is within me, I am going to try to participate in the things I love, with people I love.

Ah, Zometa. I love you too! I love what you do to strengthen me. I love that my body has so far rejected many of your side effects. I even love that you keep bringing me fatigue to help me remember that balance is a good thing and rest is needful at times.

Zometa. Is that yet another way of saying Great Physician?
One of the many ways He works in my life.
Ever present.

Anniversary

May 12, 2015

My alarm just woke me to say that it is 10 minutes until May 12.  For some reason, I spent Monday sorting through things that I had pulled out a month ago and never put away again.

The things Roger put on his uniform every day, badges, pins, ID, Accountability Card.  His comb. His little tiny glasses.

And the Fire Dept tie (clip on, of course) that he never ever wore.

I scanned some more papers. International Drivers' License. Ten of them. Ten trips to support shuttle missions overseas - ten, at least.  A lot of passports. All his. He used them up and had to renew them.

I ran across more photos. I love this one because Roger RARELY wore a coat - but we picked this one out together and when he wore one, this was it most of the time....for 40 years or so. He said that he did better than the Israelites wandering around the desert.  Of course, I cropped Newt G and his wife out of the photo.

Ah....And then came the newspaper clippings-obituary-  and the pencil rubbing from the last Firefighter Memorial. The notes from the grandchildren. Valentine cards to each other.

It seems so surreal. Still.
Life. All in a box.

My phone dinged at 5:30 tonight. Roger. Eternity.  It does that every Monday.  I can't make myself change it. Maybe I just don't want to forget. And also, maybe it is a really good reminder of how very near eternity really is.

I'll go back to sleep in a bit, but I'll be thinking of Roger throughout this new day. I'll think about how I met him 'in the Sears Catalog" and how when a co-worker told me that I should go out with him, that I said he was SO OLD!  Ah...well, he was when I was only 20!

But really, old, he never was. He always said I kept  him young, and that might be so, but in many ways I had a hard time keeping up with him.  I could blame it on his long legs, but he was always moving faster than me.

Today I will be wishing that I had been more demanding about making him slow down and smell the roses. I will be wishing that he had stayed a little longer.  I'll be wishing that I had not stayed busy with other things and had slowed myself down a bit and done those crazy things that never seemed like 'me.' Things like the two of us pushing the cart around the grocery store on an almost daily basis.  

I always resisted, because I always thought there would be time for that when he was 90 and I was 80.   I never, ever expected that he would not make it to even close to 80.

But, reality will set in also, and I will recognize that Roger would not leave the joys of Heaven even if he could. Since his departure, other friends have passed on. Some days, it seems to be a cycle.
Some days, I feel like God is just calling His children home because something big is about to take place down here.  If that is the case, then I want everyone I know to be ready for eternity. To experience a joy greater than any we have on earth.  That is what Roger would want as well.

Anniversary. A day to remember.  I'm glad that I started writing over a year ago. It has been a help to me. It has been good to record memories for my children and grandchildren. It has also been wonderful to recognize that none of us will be here forever. This is practice.  This wedding day that we experienced 42 years ago, and the life we lived together, was practice. It was practice for a perfect life in eternity.

I like to remember the ups of our life together, and not the downs. But I have come to realize that the downs made us stronger and increased our faith, both in God and in each other. The downs led us to the next up.  We did the richer and poorer, and the sickness and health - although it was mostly me who did the really tough sick part, which might have been better for him. (I wonder what kind of nurse I would have been had it been the other way around)   The til death do us part....well, we did that too, not that I was fond of that part so much. We had a fun life together, figuring each other out, being total opposites in so many ways, accepting each other without trying to mold the other into a whole new person.  And yet we were different people at the end of it than we were when we started. Aren't we all?  Hopefully we were better. More loving, more forgiving, more encouraging.

Does it get better over a year later? Not really. It gets manageable. Life can still be joyful and life can still have meaning. Does it mean that the 'new normal' will ever feel 'normal?'   I kind of think not.  Maybe I will have a better reading on that in a decade.

Interesting that Woodlawn called today. They wanted his marker to be installed. Plastic sign - still - over a year later.  Veteran's Admin holdup. Go figure.   Roger would laugh. He would tell me that he is not there so don't let it bother me.  He would find humor in the fact that the VA is so slow.  He would say that they know he was a conservative Republican.  He does not even have a vase for me to put flowers in, and they dug up his tree.  "The sun will keep my muscles warm" he would laugh and say.  Good grief. I can still hear his voice in my head all the time. And mostly, he makes me laugh!

Roger's Lesson: Don't get hung up on that stuff. Keep living and don't hang out at the cemetery. You can't help those who have gone on. Invest in those who are still here. Keep telling them about the joy they can experience in eternity, but that they have to decide now.  Don't give up. 

Yes, it is also interesting that I found a paper today called "Happenings In Heaven"
I had never seen it before, and I thought I had been through all of Roger's stuff.
Interesting that I saw it today - I'll read it sometime during this anniversary day.  I'll skip to the part about the Marriage of The Lamb.  

And I know that it will remind me of the great times we had together on this earth, and that the good times were only a teeny tiny taste of the life to come.  And I will think on those wonderful things of earth that we experienced together - and I will thank God that for whatever crazy reason He allowed me to end up in the Sears Catalog department in 1972, I recognize that He directed it all - just has He has done every day since.  And that he allowed Roger to survive an awful car accident in March of 72 and be on medical leave, picking up his dad from ...yes, Sears, and hanging out in the Catalog Department until clock out time...... only God could have arranged that.

It is too bad the Sears Catalog has gone the way of the dinosaur.  But I am so glad that my man found his bride at the Catalog desk!  Thank you, Lord!

And as Roger would say...... Un-Buh-leave-a-bull !!!!    

The whole story? 
....ah, look back in the archives to May 12, 2014 - the photos and stories can be found there! 

Happy Birthday

May 5, 2015

I love morning email messages that tell me that something is coming in the mail.

In this case, about 35 photo albums.

I spent the better part of April re-reading journals and going through 15, 000 (+) photos in order to create a photo album for the kids (well - their parents) who went to Europe's Mediterranean Coast in January.

The theme - interestingly - The Journey.

And talk about surprises. I still sit here in May - going into 4 months from that 'diagnosis'  of "Malignant" - and thinking about the journey.  In January, I was headed to Europe - Italy, Monaco, France, Spain - and yet, while the kids were away, I spent the time in the hospital. (Thankfully, not a European one!)

Thankfully, I trusted God to open and close doors, which I always try to do. Of course, I was praying for the group - not praying about me. But God knew. He always does.

God knew what we all needed before we knew. His presence has been evident every step of the way these past four months.

We are praying that I will respond well to treatments, and the doctors are very pleased that I am.  I know that is not me, that is prayer.

In these journals, I read student recollections of endurance, perseverance, and the fact that this journey called life is their personal journey, and not one that someone can do for them.  Did they 'get it?'  Only time will tell.  I like writing things down because it makes it so much easier to recall your experiences and your thoughts.  No one can mess with your head if you write things down.

I know that the process of journaling (blogging) has helped me through this journey called 'grief' this past year.  I can tell a difference when days go by and I have not expressed my thoughts in written word.  I know that much of this journey is a process and that each journey is different, and yet much the same.

I love watching the lives of these young people that God allowed to cross my path - for whatever the reason and no matter how long or short the time.  I love watching the people they grow to be and the way they choose to live their lives.  I love being able to pray that they find their way, even when they may not know that I am even aware or praying.

We did not have 'social media' when I was a teen. Their lives are so much on display that in many ways it is scary. Yet, I have to believe that in many ways, this new media of ours is something that can be used for so much good if we will allow it.   And I allow it to be my little portal for prayer.   I allow God to let some random name pop up every now and then so that I have no need to 'stalk' - I don't like that terminology and I don't do it ' but when someone randomly comes up, it is like my little message from God that they need something and I can pray about it.

This week, one is taking parents to Europe - I think that is so exciting and I am praying that she makes it the most amazing trip of their lives. They are blessed and she will teach them a lot. It is good as we get older, to let our children lead. It is one way that we know we can trust them to make good decisions on our behalf when we reach the point of needing their assistance.

Another just got married. I am praying that he leads that new bride beautifully as the spiritual leader of his new home.

Babies are being born and families expanding. And I pray for health and joy as they lead these little ones to know God at an early age.

But at the other end of the spectrum, there are friends who are ill, or losing parents, or struggling with losing the independence they cherish, and specific prayers are there for them as well.

Does it make any difference?  I have to believe that it does. I know it does in my life.

I know that it is a lot better to spend my days praying for others and ways for them to draw closer to God than it is to just sit in the house all day and wish myself well, or grumble about all that I can not do right now.

Roger's Lesson:  As long as you are living and breathing, find a way to do something for other people. You'll enjoy life more every day.  And every 365 of them, you're another year closer to eternity! 

I would say so!

And more than that, only four months ago, I was not entirely sure - actually not sure at all that I would see another birthday - or at the very least, not be very well when one rolled around.

But today - I would kick up my heels - if it were not for that weight-bearing issue on a fractured hip.  But in my mind, I will be kicking up my heels - and I will be rejoicing that I am indeed another year older. And it does not bother  me one single bit.

I can still say, that when the doctors did not give me hope of seeing 46 - well, for goodness sakes - sixty something looks pretty great!

Happy birthday to me - Around 23, 010 days, and counting.

Of course, only God knows the true number of the days - and that there will be so many more in eternity!