If you know me, you know I have just a few (10-15?) Life is Good (LIG) t-shirts and long sleeve tees. Today I was wearing my Hold Your Horses LIG long sleeve tee and had to see the lady that is working with me about my contacts and mono vision. She really liked my shirt because she shows horses - she has a couple of photos on her wall. That got us to talking about horses - she shows Palominos and Paints - then we talked about the World Expo Percheron show that had been at the Iowa State Fairgrounds this past October. That led me to saying my pat line, "After God created mankind the best thing He created were dogs and then horses" which this gal totally agreed. And I had noticed her wrist band last time I saw her but didn't ask her about it - today I got a better look at it. It was from Winter Jam sponsored by 107.1 FM which is a Christian radio station. I asked her about the wrist band and Winter Jam and she said it was awesome, which led us to talking a little about God and where we both went to church. You just never know what may open a chance to talk to someone that is a believer or witness to an unbeliever.
I did it again last night - thought I could drink a Coke after 8:00 pm and be ok. Well I was ok.....until I wanted to go to sleep, so that got my mind to wandering about numbers. I do not believe in Numerology or whatever it's called, but I do find it interesting how numbers show up in our lives, so here's some of my numbers:
- Dad is one of 3 children
- Mom is one of 2 children
- I am one of 1 child
- I had 0 children (naturally) but have three kids
- Casey (middle kid) has 2 children
- Andy (youngest kid) has 1 child
- Traci (oldest kid) has 0 children
- Mom and Dad were married in 1947 and Mike was born in 1947
- Mike and I were married for 26 years and Mike was 62 years old when he passed
- Our next anniversary (this year) would have been our 27th (April 6th) and Mike passed on the 27th of April
- My first year anniversary as a fulltime employee at Wells Fargo was 4.27.10 and Mike passed on 4.27.10
Now - I really, really, really do not like the word widow or the number 27. The book I bought yesterday, "Finding Your Way Through Loneliness" is written by Elisabeth Elliot who was not widowed once but twice and she has a chapter titled The Gift of Widowhood. I'm like hmmmmmmmmmmmm - ok let's see what she has to say. "He had done more than merely "allow" a thing to "happen" to me. I do not know any more accurate way of putting it than to say that He had given me something. He had given me a gift - widowhood. How can I say such a thing? He does not whisk us at once to Glory. We go on living in a fractured world, suffering in one way or another the effects of sin - sometimes our own, sometimes others. Yet I have come to understand even suffering, through the transforming power of the Cross, as a gift, for this broken world, in our sorrow, He gives us Himself; in our loneliness, He comes to meet us.....Widowhood taught me another kind of loneliness......Social gatherings are still often made up of what we call couples. As a widow I never enjoyed being a fifth wheel. I threw things off balance simply by being there, but this was a reality I had to come to terms with.........What I did plan to do was to accept the place God was giving me. As a widow I was still a member of the same Body. Christ was it's Head, and God's great purpose had not been altered by my having lost a husband. It was a part of the plan." Hmmmmmmmmm......this is a very small excerpt from her book but it's right on. I still don't like the word widow - I think it's a horrid word - but I think I'm learning to embrace it - I'll have to get back to you on that though.
Now for the number 27. Last February I spent three of the four weeks in Raleigh helping train the team that took over what my department did in DSM. A year ago tomorrow I flew in from my last week of training and Mike picked me up at the airport. Like I had mentioned before, we talked once a day whenever I traveled and during last February he had talked about some back pain that had gotten worse as the month went on. That Saturday he talked on-and-off about the back pain and then on Sunday it was really bothering him so I took him to his doctor's office (they are open Sunday afternoons) and he was given muscle relaxants. Instead of helping relieve the pain - it got worse and we ended up in Iowa Methodist's ER that night where Mike's scan found the new tumor next to T10 and the next day (3.1.10) Mike was admitted to Mercy Hospital and our world turned upside down.
This Sunday is the 27th - ten months since Mike passed - a year since his tumor was found. I know the date was 2.28.10 but a lot of times I think of the day something happened instead of the actual date. And two months later on April 27th Mike was gone. I never stopped to think (until last night when I couldn't get to sleep) it was almost two months to the date of finding that tumor that Mike was gone - wow. So while I won't dwell on this, it does kind of kick you in the gut when you realize it.
Each day is truly a gift - enjoy it!
