Remembering Gram

Today, I'm remembering gram
and standing in awe of the faithfulness the Lord has showed me in the days since.

Grammy, we still miss you like crazy.
and Papa...

I pray a new prayer.

Umm... well...

I'm just going to come right out and say it.
I killed our frog.

The first death,
not really my fault.

This one?
For sure.

I tried to be a good frog owner
and actually clean Walter's water for once.
Well, let's just say I didn't do it correctly.

He's dead.

A Heavy Heart

Pensive.

My heart is heavy,
weighed down with sadness and mourning
as I think about the loss of Escondido's Aaron and Anthony this weekend.

Facebook flooded with recollected memories
and encouraging messages to the Farkas family.

Overwhelmed.

The flood continued this morning
But this time with prayers for Rory Renfrow
who lost his darling wife Jaimee to CF yesterday.
A beautiful girl with a deep love for the Lord.

What a stark contrast, yet glimpse of hope
to remember that today Stephanie Nielson
is celebrating two years since her
almost life-ending plane crash in 2008.

How precious life is.
And how futile everything else seems today.

---------------

A picture with Jaimee and other Finch-mates
at the Padres game sophomore year

As I think of her...

Along with the tears, memories flood.
Memories I've captured here, and here, and here,
and here, and here, and here,and here, and here, and here.
And still many others that I've kept treasured in my inner being.

In November 2008, my Gram was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer
a vicious beast, a hungry aggressor.
I cried for days, and weeks, and months
at the thought of losing her
at the thought of our wedding without her.

For she and Papa have been at every event I can think of
from pre-school graduation, to elementary school award assemblies
from softball games and opening day, to birthday parties, to high school graduation.
Always cheering me on. Always telling me how proud she is.

I've spent countless afternoons at gram's
digging through her craft closet
and making something out of nothing on her kitchen table.
She taught me how to bake her special cookies
And how to sew simple pillows.
She taught me how to paint and bought me cases of supplies.
She stirred my creative soul.

By the grace of God and her insanely stubborn spirit,
she was able to escape ICU
and celebrate our wedding with us last May

Last night, she passed away.

And all of the different thoughts I've been wrestling with
over the last year and a half
flooded back into my mind:

What is death and illness?
Why is death and illness?
Did I take advantage of my time with her?
Did I learn from her? Pray for her? Share with her?
What does the Lord's goodness and mercy look like
in light of this situation?
How should I live, having known her?

And I take such comfort in knowing
that, yes, I did pray for her,
and share with her, and spend time with her, and learn from her.
And yes, the Lord's goodness is sovereign.
In His spirit, I find strength.

Thank you, Heavenly Father,
for the life of my grandma.
Thank you for the memories we created together
and for the lessons you've taught through her.

I miss you already, Gram. <3
And Papa, I'm praying for you.

RIP Henry

Survival of the fittest has been a rather depressing reality in our little home for the past few weeks, culminating today in the death of our littlest frog.

You may remember I snagged these *handsome* fellas a couple months ago when I was wondering around UTC. Walter and Henry, my sister named them. And well, truth be told, Walter is a selfish food-hog. I'm pretty sure he's been eating Henry's helping of food pellets for the past month or so now because he has grown to be 3x bigger than little Henry.

I was planning to separate the feuding frogs so that little Henry could regain his strength, but apparently I didn't make the move quick enough. I woke up this morning to find our sweet little Henry laying belly-up at the bottom of his tank.

Darn you, Walter. It's all your fault.

If we can't keep frogs alive, how on God's green earth will we handle parenthood? =]]

A moment of silence, please.

Blessed

Today is the two year anniversary of Crystal's passing. I didn't even know she had died until I was on Facebook this morning and saw the updated status of an old schoolmate. When I found out she had passed away, I googled her only to find that the car accident actually happened two years ago. We weren't good friends or anything, but we had all our classes together during middle school. I remember her. And I can see her smiley face when I say her name. As a sidenote here, I'm glad everyone is using Facebook now because this would not have gone un-noticed by all WPMS Alum if it happened now.

I read the article in the NC Times. Her car flipped over on the freeway. And I had a flashback. A flashback to my senior year in high school when my own car flipped over and landed on the hood. I put my pen down, closed my eyes and saw it all happen again. Slow-motion.

On that Thursday in September 2004, it actually felt like it was happening in slow-motion. And at the same time, it happened all two quickly to be frightening. I pulled out of Palomar and made a right onto Mission. As I approached the light, I began to get into the left lane to turn onto Las Posas. A young guy rearended my back passenger-side tire. My care jolted to the left, boucing off the center divide and into the pickup truck in the lane to my right. I bounced off the car too. And flipped. It felt like I was in the air for hours until I came crashing down on the driver's side door and window. I can still see the glass shattering and I can still hear the load boom. My car was lifted again and flipped in the air before landing on the hood. My little Civic stood strong. And I hung there, quite glad I had my seat belt on because that's what kept me from falling face-first into the asphalt.

I'm so lucky that I survived. Lucky that I wasn't injured. Lucky that insurance bought me a new car. And lucky that I was able to go back to Palomar the following week, to the tennis class where I met Jeremiah. Blessed.