If you're ever in a situation like mine, do NOT tell your daughter you have a few days free before your winter schedule of activities begin. I did, and I paid! My so-called free days were a recent Friday and Saturday; I was already babysitting for her that Saturday night, so I was looking forward …
Grace Notes #12: Miracle
A miracle happened while Pastor David was pouring the grape juice. Standing in front of him on the pulpit, to his right, I told myself to concentrate on the moment. Focus on his face. Focus on his words. Focus on the flowing of the juice. Today, at nearly 77, I served communion as an elder …
Grace Notes #11: Grief at Five Months
This time I didn’t have to lie on the floor; this time I used the chair. The occasion? A purposeful visit to my closet. I’d awakened the day after Christmas with a feeling of optimism. I’d made it through Christmas with my eyes misting up only once, and that was during the Christmas Eve service …
Grace Notes #10: Trip/Bethlehem
"Ladies and gentlemen, put your cameras away," our guide yelled into her microphone on the tour bus, followed by a louder, more urgent command, "Guys, no cameras." Such was my introduction to Bethlehem, the tranquil city I'd always sung about: Oh, little town of Bethlehem how still we see thee lie Above thy deep and …
Grace Notes #9: Trip to Israel and Jordan
Six weeks after Marv’s death, an unsolicited email arrived from Road Scholar announcing a trip to Israel and Jordan leaving in two months. Immediately, I wanted to go. It seemed like a special idea to go to Jesus’ sites the year that Marv went to heaven. I reasoned a trip that soon would give me …
Grace Notes #8 – Marv’s TANA Pledge: An End of Life Vision
Last week, when the "foreverness" of my loss threatened to plunk me down, I received an uplifting reminder of Marv's ever-present optimism. In his final weeks, he sprang his idea of a TANA pledge on me. TANA is Trinity Christian College's nursing alumni association. I, of course, gave him at least a dozen reasons why …
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Grace Notes #7 – Out of Control, A Rant
I’m very glad the last few days are over. “Everything is out of control,” I bellowed to my daughter over the phone. Then I listed legal and financial paperwork I was dealing with and added that I needed a window washer and someone else to check my eavestroughs, and did she remember my evergreens are …
Grace Notes #6 – Grief at Three Months
I’m a grief group dropout, attending three but dropping out of two. There is no one right way to grieve. And no one can tell you if you should attend a grief group or not, or if you choose to, what kind of group to attend. Knowing this, and having a curiosity about grief groups, …
Grace Notes #5 – Outrageous
At book club last week, we finished Joan Chittister’s The Gift of Years: Growing Older Gracefully. Many things in the book resonated with me, but I needed her chapter on “Future” right now as I emerge from the two-month mark of being a widow (there, I said the word I don’t like, but it seems …
Grace Notes #4: Skating
When Marv had his first cancer, prostate, in 1999, I fell off the rails. As I was telling that story to a mutually grieving friend last week, I thought back to what a therapist told me at the time: "Sounds like you're bouncing along the bottom." Here’s the situation as I described it in Caring …
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