My Father's Death

Don't know where to start or what to say as usual. There are some emotions I can't express here because as much as I would love to they are too personal even for this. But I must say that I am blessed that God gave my a best girlfriend or two in whom I can turn to and express anything and everything my heart desires and know I will never ever be judged. I did not cry at my dad's funeral. I have a different way of grieving. I do the busy thing. I have to keep busy and focus on something, anything else. I am a Martha. (Remember Martha and Mary from the gospels.) I have to do. I have to pick up the phone and inform people. I can't sit down. I need busy work just don't put me in the kitchen! So that is what I did. Then at night when all is quiet I can then allow myself to think and let loose in the privacy of my room, with no other people around.

My father was two weeks short of 95. He died in his sleep. He went to bed and never woke up. That is the best way to go.

The wake and funeral were perfect just the way he would have wanted it. God went before us and helped me prepare everything. The funeral home was great. You know they can read your mind. They know what you need before you do :). I know that that they are supposed to do that but it still amazed me. I mean down to the smallest detail like Thank you notes. I was thinking oh I need to buy thank you notes and there in the packet they left me were a bunch of thank you notes. Too bad they don't write them for you lol. My daughter did a great job writing the obituary and my son's Eulogy was absolutely incredible. I was blessed to have all my children here and my daughter in laws for wonderful support. As I said. God went before us in every way.

So now its over and the real work begins. I ask my Lord to go before me once again to help us move my mother in here with us and to sort through everything. Sorting through everything is not so easy. But as the the Lord says with God we can do anything.

Skiing a love-hate relationship

There was a time when I loved to ski. There was no hate except getting up at 6 am so my husband could be on the slopes for breakfast by 8. We would have a front row parking space. If we were in the second row we were running late. We would be on the first lift ride up with the kids in tow. We would ski till the lifts closed with a lunch break somewhere inbetween. I very much enjoyed being out there in the fresh air, zooming down the mountain side and trying to keep up with the rest of the family. That was our Sunday, almost every Sunday for many many winters.

One winter, I got hit by a snowboarder, tore ligaments in my shoulder and couldn't ski for awhile. The only thing that did was make me paranoid of snowboarders, went back to skiing and nothing else fazed me for many years to come.

But somehow, time passed and I got older. We no longer ski every Sunday. In fact, except to spend an hour at the gym in the morning we hang around the house all day Sunday. You might say we have become old boring people. We relax and do our own thing. But once a year we spend a week at Snowbird ski resort. That is where I am right now. Even that started out as a total blast. We have ski in and ski out capabilities. All we do all day is eat, sleep and ski everyday for a week. Heavenly right? But one day I realized I wasn't 30, 35, 40 or even 45 anymore. Energy became more difficult to come by. One day I was skiing happily down a slope I had skied down hundreds of time and I fell. I didn't just fall I tumbled it my head on the ground hard my ski came off half way up the mountain and I fractured my leg. Actually, Thank God I got off the hook very easily. It could have been much worse had I not been wearing a helmet. We had only started wearing those the year before. But fracturing my leg made me think a lot about life. I don't worry much about death because if it happens I am gone, I'm with God and all is well. What I have come to fear most is pain and suffering and all the things I can't do if I am hurting. So, the love started to dwindle a little and the hate started to appear. Now I am not at all saying I hate to ski. I still love everything I have always loved about it. I can't ski as long as I used. But now I fear falling. I fear skiing on icy terrain. I fear getting hurt. In comes the hate. Now the question is will I eventually give into the fear and hate and stop skiing altogether or will I come to terms with the fear. I am still trying to figure this out.

In the meantime, when I am out there I relay totally on God's protection.

Christmas Memories

As the Christmas season is about to end all we are left with are pictures and memories. I would like to share some of them with you, the memories that is. I have yet to learn how to put pictures onto this blog.

On Christmas Eve I took Ethan to his first church service. It was the Children's Mass at my parent's parish. I actually love this Mass and go every year. I love watching the children, and I love the music. Ethan was extremely well behaved. He is very curious and takes all the sights and sounds in. He watched everything and everyone. He stayed in my arms almost the whole time. There was this cute little girl just a couple of weeks younger than Ethan. She was staring at him and cooing. She kept trying to get his attention. She eventually did. He watched her for a few minutes. She was smiling he was very serious. Then he turned his head and his attention went to other faces and people. As my mother and I watched this scene we giggled. Then came the icing on the cake. I got to bring my grandson to the alter to have him blessed. It was a privilege and an honor to be the first to introduce him to God and bring him for his first blessing. I hope I will have many such occasions in the future. I was told in the past that Jesus must have been around 8 or 9 months old when the wise men came to him bearing gifts. Seeing how Ethan was with others makes me think of how Jesus may have been when the Wise Men came. How he would have looked at them and cooed and giggled.

I mentioned in that past that Ethan tried to talk and have conversations. This has temporarily stopped. I was told because he is teething. He has two tiny pearly whites on the bottom gum. He does love to be held and it is so wonderful to see him look at me with adoring eyes. He doesn't seem to have much trouble being passed around from one person to another in the family and when he is in a good mood he sometimes goes to the friends.

As far as opening presents, he doesn't have that quite down yet but he does love paper. It was fun to watch him tear it up :). All in all we all enjoyed the wonderful week together. I can honestly say I really miss my little guy and I miss his parents too. My other son and daughter-in-law will return to their home tomorrow. I will miss them both very much but I look forward to meeting the child they are to have in June. I am lucky my daughter is still with me for another couple of weeks.

The Best Christmas Ever

The time has finally come! Christmas is here and the house is filled with family. But the Christmas treat is having my grandson here. We had another wonderful experience today. We were blessed to see a live ultrasound of our new unborn baby. My other daughter in law is pregnant now. She is at 14 weeks yesterday. We took my mom with us. She had never seen anything like that. The new little one was very active.

The meeting between my mother and Ethan was a very emotional moment. No not for Ethan but for my mom. She started to tear up. As I sit here and write this, she is in the living room having a blast with that little stinker. Let me tell you how spoiled he is. He will not eat store bought apple sauce in a jar. It must be freshly made. Guess what his mom is doing right now? lol

Ethan is a riot. He still can't crawl but he gets around with an army crawl. Let me tell you his crawl is pretty fast too. He is so enjoying the attention. There are 9 adults in this house at his beck and call and we all enjoy playing with him. He laughs more now than he used too. I just love sitting around watching him and of course holding him and hugging him and kissing him. I guess the greatest thing of all is that he will come to me. He recognized me right away.

There will be more coming up as the days go on.

Christmas time with a baby in the house.

Christmas is almost here.

Again I don't know where this is going tonight but I felt I had to write. I went to Mass tonight, Yes, I worship in the Catholic Church, and the deacon gave the "sermon" or whatever they call it now. I found it very interesting because I felt he was right on as to what I have been feeling all week. This is the first Christmas in years where I have felt an unbelievable amount of joy and peace. You might say that I basically have it all, I have much to be thankful for. I have a wonderful family a grandson a grand baby on the way, my husband and kids are employed, I don't have to go out and work, a warm house etc. I am extremely grateful to God for providing all these things to me but it has been more than that. Since Advent began I have actually felt Christ's presence. You have to understand that I don't feel that often and every Christmas for quite a few years I have not felt that at all. I honestly don't know what has changed unless it is me. I know I won't always feel this way but I am enjoying this feeling at the moment. The deacon told us that Jesus is the reason for the joy. I have been studying a section of the psalms this year and they have made it very very clear that God is truly with us always, that he cares about everything we do, that he protects us and watches over us. What is different is that I am truly trying to take this to heart especially the Trust in Him statement. I have become frazzled several times in the past couple of weeks but I have told Him that I trust him and have truly tried to do that and I guess he honored that by filling me with joy. This is not the joy of excitement for Christmas though I am because I am expecting all the kids to come, but a peace that surpasses all understanding. As the deacon told us Joy begins with the letter J as does Jesus. Jesus and joy go together. I liked that.

I have also found a peace in having everything finished early though in the past everything was still done early and yet there was no joy. I have found great joy in going to church on Sunday. That too doesn't always happen. I want to thank my God for this joy and hope that he will give me this peace even as the house settles down and the children leave.

I sit in front of the tree in the evening and look at the manger. I think of my grandson as being the age of when the wise men probably found Jesus. I have been told that it took them several months from the moment they saw the star till the day they found him. I have had time to meditate on the shepherds that saw the star and went to that manger and saw the baby. I have thought about being one of the shepherds and how cool would that be to see that star and find a baby. If I found that baby what would I say? What would I do?

On that note, I say goodnight. More will come as the family arrives. I believe that this is meant to be a very special Christmas that will be unique. No other Christmas in this family will ever be the same with the same joy and peace as this one. Thank you Lord for this special gift.

Grandchildren What A Blessing!

As I was waiting to fall asleep last night, I was thinking about writing in the blog today. I had the most joyous encounter (if that is possible with a 7 month old over the internet) with my grandson. I wanted to write it down because I then print this blog and will show it to my little one when he gets older. I want to treasure and remember all these special memories of him. Last night I saw him again on internet video. He turned 7 months yesterday. So I started to sing him Happy Birthday and he looked up at me on the computer and started to sing too. Oh my gosh how cute is that? Let me tell you it made my entire day. I couldn't stop smiling the whole evening.

I know I told you that Ethan means strong and he is mentioned in the Bible in 1 Chronicals 15:17,19. But what I didn't realize till a few day ago, when my other son happened to mention it, was that Ethan was also a musician (percussionist) in King David's band. He wrote Psalm 89. It talks about the reign of David and the great things God has done. It praises God. It is interesting that God showed me this before I heard my little grandson sing. It warms my heart

even more.

At the present time I am studying the Psalms of the Assent. I just finished Psalm 127. It talks about the joy of children and what a blessing they are from God. Vs. 3 Sons are a heritage from the Lord, children a reward from him. I have been blessed with three and the greatest blessing of all is the frosting on the cake, the grandchild.