A stronger faith

On driving home, from a rural area today, I passed a small church that had the following message on a sign out front:

"Come on in. Let God help you become the man your dog thinks you are."

What a great message.

It's true and I'm trying.

Choice words

"Every person you meet today is either a construction or a demolition project. Your words will make a difference. Will they be weapons for construction or destruction?"-Author unknown

I've usually always tried to avoid breaking folks down with my words but I haven't always emphasized  building folks up with my words either.

I've usually felt that words of thanks are not necessarily needed if/when someone is doing what they are supposed to be doing.

I'm now understanding better that this is, in fact, a good thing to do.

Life is short-why not tell folks you are thankful for things?

"No matter what people tell you, words can change the world."-Robin Williams

A surprise in most every cabinet

So many wonderful things mysteriously happened in our home over the years.

I would typically go to work on a day around a holiday and when I would get back home our house would be decorated.

Other times I would come home to a special treat-brownies, bundt cake or cupcakes.

My home is not large but does have a good amount of storage space.

I've been going through most every drawer and cabinet-drawers and cabinets that I never had a reason to go through before.

I've come across carefully stored Easter, Halloween, Thanksgiving and even Independence Day decorations.

I never knew we had 15 cupcake pans-all different sizes.

It's been emotional but time has helped.

I know I couldn't  have done this 6 months or so ago.

I'm saddened but more than anything just so incredibly thankful that we had such an amazing life together and that she made such an incredible home for us.

Just so truly thankful.

A fairy reduction

We used to have twice as many "fairies" in our home.

T was the grocery fairy,  the laundry fairy, the bathroom cleaning fairy, and the even more amazing cook fairy.

I was always the dish cleaning fairy, the trash-taking out fairy, the vacuum fairy and the weed pulling fairy.

Things are getting done but will never be the same. I'm usually really tired every night.
I'm fairied out.

Still grieving?

A William Shakespeare quote:

"Everyone can master a grief but he that has it."

I think he means that "everyone who hasn't dealt with grief feels they can master it but anyone in the midst of grieving wonders if it will ever end."

It's true.

There's really no predictable timetable, unfortunately, for those grieving.

I never knew I would come across such a concise Shakespeare quote that I could understand and possibly use in the future!

On being heartbroken

My son's girlfriend of over 4 years recently broke up with him. He's really hurting. They started dating when he was 17 and she was 15. They are now 21 and 20.

She's an amazing young lady. She's been like another daughter.

When a break up is unilateral it hurts so much. It also feels like you have lost another family when you've been together so long.

I was dumped twice when I was younger. Both hurt. Both were relatively long term relationships.

During my first year of Medical School, my girlfriend of over 3 years broke up with me on Valentine's Day. I was studying a lot, and stressed, and she was working as a paralegal for a law firm in Washington DC, and socializing a lot. Every radio station had love songs playing on my two hour drive from DC back to Charlottesville. I cried like a baby. I lost track of her but I know she's been married.

I dated another woman during residency for a couple of years, until she broke up with me. She contacted me when she heard about Tori's death. We met for coffee a few months ago when she was down in Florida visiting her mother. She's been divorced for years. Her ex-husband reportedly was not a very good guy. She has two children. She wrote me a note after we met and wanted to explain that the real reason she had broken up with me some 28 years ago was because I was "too predictable." She went on to say that my predictable qualities were that I was "honest, kind caring and genuine." Qualities that she "came to appreciate" as she got older. I thanked her for saying such nice things about my character.

So...back to my son. I know he has strong faith. I've told him I know he's hurting to his core. I told him he's a great guy. I told him some things can't be explained. He knows that none of us know what tomorrow will bring, especially after losing his Mom last summer. I told him to take care of himself-eat, sleep and exercise. We will keep all communication lines open and he knows I will do anything for him. He knows he will experience all the emotions he experienced last summer, including anger, and that that is actually healthy. He knows that it will take an acting performance to pretend he's doing fine every time he cross paths with her for a while. He knows deep down that he has a great future ahead of him.

I know he doesn't need me to remind him how fortunate I was to be married to his Mom or how glad/blessed/proud I am to be his father. God had a plan.

I'm sure he will also eventually connect the paragraph above to my having had my heart broken twice when I was younger.