1 month

My dad died one month ago today.  The pain gets deeper each day.  I talk with my mom and she is doing okay yet, not.  She feels so empty, lonely, alone.  We fill her time but we aren't dad (or as she always called him, Billy).  I ache for her more than for myself.  I want to ease the pain, fill the void, soften the hurt, fill the hole, complete her again, etc.  But, really, there is nothing I can do.  The Bible says "two become one".  It isn't really that part of her died.  She died too.  The "one" isn't alive anymore.  How do you fix that?  How do you breath?  How do you eat or sleep or drive or talk or read or exist?

I keep thinking it won't be that long till we are all in heaven with him.  Then, I think, he "should of" had 20 more years.  That's 20 years that my children won't have their Papa.  And I think that gets me more than me not having my dad.  I want my children to remember him and know him and they won't.  I want a hug or a "hey, Les" or "is this the person to whom I'm speaking?" or to hold his hand again like he liked to do with us while he laid in the hospital bed.  Just to see him again and not in a picture.

I never get a chance to think or cry about him.  I feel bad that I don't feel bad.  Then one little thing could send me over but there is a crying child or screaming child so I choke back the tears again.

I think of him holding our 3 babies that we never met.  That they are with their Papa and how he loves them.  I remember mom telling me how she found him crying after we told them of our first miscarriage.  Now he is rejoicing with them!

I just want him back.  I want him to walk into the room.  I want him to make my kids crazy.  I want him to fall asleep in the chair, any chair.  I want him to......

14th on the 13th

The 13th was our anniversary.  We weren't able to do anything, but Friday night my mom is watching 3 of 4 kids and we are going to eat some dinner and shoot some guns!  We were going to camp too, but I think it is too hot!

Though life is harder in many ways than when we got married, it is also so much better.  We have 4 wonderful children and many more memories and inside jokes and movie quotes!

I thought I married the man of my dreams when I was 20.  What I've realized is that I'm married to the man of my dreams now.  He is different in many ways than back then, but so am I.  We have changed together and grown together.  I am blessed to be married to a man who is sanctifying me daily with the Word.

"Praise God from whom all blessings flow..."  Seth is my greatest blessing!!