I've been thinking about Willie a lot lately. I don't know if it's the time of year, the sad Christmas music playing in the background, or the continued loss that I seem to keep experiencing. My own little family, we try real hard to focus on our abounding blessings, no matter our circumstances. We love each other deeply. We have fun and try our best to be content with what we have and where we must go and all that. We thank God for everything. We are thankful....even in our losses.
Yesterday, my parents sold their lake house. It is not the house I grew up in, but it has been a home of really awesome family gatherings and parties and dinners and holidays for the last 12 years or so. It is all the little kids have known. It is where we all went for Christmas and it was a yearly summer vacation spot. It was big enough to accommodate all of us and our kids and all our gear and it was awesome. Here are just a few of the posts that have accumulated over the last almost 5 years of my humble little blog.
Christmas 2010
Christmas 2010
Christmas 2010
summer 2010
summer 2009
summer 2009
summer 2008
summer 2007
I have my own life now, but I can't help but feel a significant loss at the closing of this chapter. It represents so much of what I love about life and "family" and even that has been lost.
Today my parents terminated their marriage. They are now officially divorced.
While this is something I have been privately processing and grieving for the last year, today marks a significant day of loss in my life. Perhaps it has no business on my blog. Perhaps it deserves a space to be spoken about.
I go back and forth between real sadness and a renewed focus on my own marriage and family apart from all that, knowing we will make the best of whatever our family looks like now.
I suppose it makes sense that Willie has been on my mind. I wonder what he would make of all this and how as siblings we would bond over the shared loss of things we considered valuable and a part of what makes us "us".
In all, I am constantly reminded to give thanks. God has blessed us immeasurably. I have to look at this path we are on as one that God has set before us and my responsibility is to keep my eyes on Him, the only one who can heal us and redeem us and build something beautiful from ashes.
"For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." Jeremiah 29:11
There is grief. It continues. But there is great joy in the bigger picture. And I'm grateful for that.
For his anger lasts only a moment,
but his favor lasts a lifetime;
weeping may stay for the night,
but rejoicing comes in the morning. Psalm 30:5
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
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4 comments:
I just love you. *sigh*
Not the best day, but keep going like you do, I would fix it if I could. Family is that important.
Uncle Bubba
i am grieving too. sad sad sad and you and i both know Willie would have been mad....real real mad and called us hypocrites and weak and failures....and many other harsh and very true things he would have laid on your father and me....and it is true....i miss that boy's honesty (right or wrong)....i miss our old life and i am not going to look backwards....that's not the direction i'm going....am going to try to continue to look forward...and ask for forgiveness...
... it's like the tide, sometimes high, sometimes low and sometimes extreme but in those lowest moments, things are revealed that are hard to see otherwise. Love to you all.
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