Long Absence

I don't believe I've gone this length of time without posting something since I started blogging back in February. But....I only usually blog at work, and having been out for a week and a half, it kind of limits my ability. Add to that a funeral, lots n lots of family in town, and yet another illness, and blogging definitely took a back seat.

Thank you so much to everyone for your kind words and prayers over the last couple of weeks as my grandpa entered the kingdom of Heaven. It's been a difficult two weeks and I'm having a hard time getting back in the "groove" of things at work after being gone for so long. I kind of feel like my life existed in a little circle of family and grieving and the outside world so much as disappeared.

But life goes on and I must move with it.

The slide show that I posted yesterday didn't quite turn out as I had envisioned. Shortly before my grandpa died, I decided that I wanted to do something special. At first, I decided that I wanted to do a slide show on my blog....like I did yesterday....with pictures of my grandpa. Then I expanded the idea to doing a DVD slide show presentation at the funeral. I spent time with my grandma and my aunt poring over about a dozen photo albums filled to the brim with pictures of my grandpa, his ancestors, all the way down to recent pictures of me and my family. I narrowed down the selection to about 50, and with the help of a wonderful couple at church, scanned the pictures and put them into a DVD presentation for the funeral which turned out so great. I am forever indebted to these people for letting me use their computer, their scanner, their expertise and their time in order to make my vision a reality for my grandpa and family. The slide show was put to music: the song was perfect. "Oh, How The Years Go By" by Amy Grant. I had envisioned having the pictures with the music in my slideshow for my blog, but after lots of time and copious amounts of frustration (and even a Napster purchase!!) over getting the pictures in the right order and finding the song to put with the slideshow, I gave up and what you see is what you got. Here are the lyrics to the song, and if you know it, you can just sing the song in your head along with the slide show. That's the best I can do for you because I GIVE UP!

Oh How The Years Go By

In our times of trouble
We only had ourselves
Nobody else
No one there to save us
We had to save ourselves

And when the storms came through
They found me and you
Back to back together
And when the sun would shine
It was yours and mine
Yours and mine forever

Chorus:
And oh how the years go by
And oh how the love brings tears to my eyes
All through the changes the soul never dies
We fight, we laugh, we cry
As the years go by

There were times we stumbled
They thought they had us down
But we came around
How we rolled and rambled
We got lost and we got found
Now we’re back on solid ground

We took everything
All our times would bring
In this world of dangers
’cause when your heart is strong
You know you’re not alone
In this world of strangers

(repeat chorus)

And if we lose our way
Any night or day
Well we’ll always be
Where we should be
I’m there for you
And I know you’re there for me

(repeat chorus twice)

As the years go by

Trying to handle explaining death to my young children was a challenge; one that I hadn't really given much thought to until grandpa got really bad. Their ages are 8, 4, and 2. Obviously, their understanding of death is going to be different and the way to handle each case is going to be different. With Anakin, I basically just gently explained the truth: Grandpa's health is getting very bad, and he will probably be dying soon. He handled it very maturely; behaved very well at the funeral and asked questions when he had them. With Care Bear and Feisty, I explained that Grandpa will (and did) be going to Heaven soon to be with Jesus. Feisty was too young to comprehend any of this, but Care Bear's response was, "When he feels better, will he come back and see us?" Aye, aye, aye....I'm just not so great at this. At my mom's last week, she wrote Grandpa a card and told my Mom that this is what it said: "Dear Grandpa, I love you and I will miss you when you are at Jesus." ...... Let me just give you a moment to go get your hanky.....

They are doing alright. Occasional act-ups and temper tantrums that are occuring make me wonder if this is them responding to his death out of inability to express their grief in other ways, or if they are just being brats. My vote is the former; I hate to think of my kids as brats.

And I will leave you today with a drawing done by Care Bear this morning. It is a turtle and her baby. I assumed it was Crush and his baby from "Finding Nemo" but mom says she identified them only as "mommy turtle" and "baby turtle". Care Bear has turned into quite an artist. She doesn't get it from Mama! That is for sure!!