Prayers


*****URGENT UPDATE******************************************************************
Down below I talk about Cathy and Lou who are walking this journey as I wrote this. However, I have learned today Lou is nearing the end so please pray hard for peace for Lou for Cathy for their two boys and all their family and friends.
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Well, during this last year one thing that has gotten me through these lonely days without my dad is my connection to Cambridge Families that I don't even know. I was connected to Cambridge through Michelle Meyer's website for her husband Dave. Since starting to read these journals and actually following these families I have become connected to these real people. So many of these families are really hurting right now and need prayer and so if you read this journal I ask you to take a moment and pray with your whole heart and soul for these families . . . .

Kari Terry is a young woman who three months ago lost her young husband and father to her four children. She now walks a path by herself with no companion. She writes about how terribly lonely she is, how she misses her partner. Her youngest celebrates his bithday this past weekend and turned 7 and now is fatherless. She struggles everyday with lonliness. Please pray for her and if you have time please visit her website and leave her encouragement she needs it.
www.caringbridge.org/mn/kevinterry/

Cathy Burres currently is walking the road of brain tumor with her dear husband Lou. She lives with Lou and supports her two sons as she knows what lies ahead. She knows that Lou is not getting better she knows he isn't going to survive. She also knows she has to have the strength to get through this. Some days she doesn't know if she can get through another day. Please pray for strength for her, please pray for peace for Lou, please pray for their sons, please just pray for them.
Click Here: Check out "Lessons from Lou"
http://lessonsfromlou.blogspot.com

I followed little Jacob Duckworth a young child, one of a set of triplets died from cancer and on that same day another family lost there young son WIll to cancer as well. Both of those families have to just get up and keep going because they have other children to take care of. Pray for these families because they need your prayer.

Back severl months ago Cheri Schuppert lost her husband and in that same week another young woman lost her husband John and a mother lost her 23 year old son Eric. All of this happened in one week. All from cancer. All too early.

This week Michelle Meyer and her three children remembered their husband/father who left them one year ago. If Michelle had not lost more than she needed when 17 years ago her and Dave lost their first born son Kyle she then lived through Dave's illness and later lost him. She is now lonely and left to raise their three beautiful children. The only thing I can think is that Kyle really needed his Dad. I can't believe there was anyother reason to take Dave. Pray for Michelle, Kenny, Zack and Kate.

I could not be complete without mentioning my mom, who lost her soul mate, my father on May 5, 05. She is lost, lonely and has every feeling each of these people I mentioned feel. Although she had a much longer life with him she still feels so empty. I spoke with my father every night and now I can't not the way I am use to. When I had problems or needed answers I still went to my dad and now I can't and it aches. People said it would get better after a year -- it didn't and it doesn't I just miss him more. Please pray for my mom

So I guess my reason for writing on this topic is that there are so many people who are hurting, so many people who need prayers, so much pain. Although I feel like I am the only one missing my dad so much there are so many other people hurting. If you know someone who has lost someone please remember to pray for them, please remember to care about them and please don't forget to remember they hurt no matter if it has been 1 day or 19 years because that kind of hurt doesn't go away . . . . . . never ever!

Besides Praying Kenny Meyers collects ink cartridges to send off and all the proceeds are going to fight CANCER. So particpate in this process and fight this deadly disease that takes many more people than I know of or you know of. Save the pain so many have felt.

SLEEP


I know it sounds like a silly topic but it is a word I have started to treasure when it happens. I thought of it today because last night was one of the first nights in months I have actually slept through the night and woke up rested. Of course woke up at 4:00 a.m. for the day but slept from 11:00 p.m. till then. It was the most straight through sleep in a long time. My typical sleep is to bed about 10:30 up at 1 back down at 2 sleep till 4 back up till 5 and sleep till 6:15 or so and RUSH like crazy to get ready for work. Night time brings such horrible memories and dreams for me. Sometimes I wake up thinking my dad is right in the other room and I get up looking for him and he isn't there and I just cry. I sometimes wonder if that feeling or those thoughts will ever go away or are they here for the rest of my life. Sometimes I wake up just shaking to think it isn't Tom next to me but my dad and I need to make sure he is still breathing and he hasn't left us. I have a beautiful portrait and certificate we received after he died from Washington D.C. for his service to the country hung on the front room wall and sometimes at night I just go and stare at it and wonder why this all happened. I always thought night time was to be peaceful and restful and now nighttime is my most dreaded time. I think that is why I try to keep my family doing things and hate when people start wanting to go to bed . . . .Maybe peace will come again in the night for me.

"Once in a while you find someone who makes such a difference in your life that to call that person a friend is not enough. That person is family and that is what you are to me"

I looked at my blog this morning and thought boy I need to update this badly but right now I don't have the energy or the mind set to do it. Then I had lunch with my friend Connie who is/has been there hand in hand with me during this year of "grief." Connie lost her mother about 1.5 months after I lost my father and although we were acquaintances we became "sisters" through this process and I so enjoy every moment and time we have to share.

Today we talked alot about this first year of loss and transitioning into what was described to us by others "as worse than the first year." I don't know how many people told us after you get through these "firsts" everything gets better. Then we had people tell us "the second year is worse" and Connie and I both agreed today that the second year is indeed worse. It is hard to describe but it is like well we made it through in this fog and disbelief state and now the first year is over and bam it hits you smack in the face that they are never returning. The fog is lifted and the reality has set in.

Connie talked about having someone call and talk about how they were leaving on a family vacation with all their kids and how they were so looking forward to it and really to Connie it was with such disregard to how she was really feeling "I want to be going to the beach with my mom." Just like when I returned from Phoenix "I bet it was the greatest time." Well yes there were great moments but there was also so many sad moments, so many sad memories, and sad goodbys. So Connie and I talked alot about those things today and I feel so priviledged that I have someone to share those feelings with . . . someone to walk that path with.

We talked about Michelle Meyer and others that we have become familiar with because of Michelle's website that have that "1st Anniversary" right around the corner. How awful a reality it will be for them when it doesn't get better. Some of those mother's lost their spouses and now raise children that they have too support emotionally. Connie's own mother at 34 raised five little girls all by herself. Woman and Men like this are heros is our book.

So this brief blog is to thank the woman that walked and continues to walk by my side as we travel through this journey we didn't chose but was choosen for us. Much love and thoughts to those who walk this road too; although we don't always meet, Connie and I think of you and know what you are experiencing.

REASONS TO SMILE . . . .

Although, there is so much heartache left from the death of my father it is also hard not to smile when thinking of our first born grandchild, Ciara. I was so happy to get some real quality time with her. She brings much happiness to me, to her greatgrandma, her aunt and her mom. My father was a "girls" guy; nothing made him more proud than his girls. I remember in November 05 when Morgan and I flew to Phoenix for a week (Heather was already there going to nursing school) and he took us out to this very expensive steak house and he made a toast "to all my favorite girls." He was in the best minutes of his life when he was surrounded by all of us. Both times I got pregnant he wanted nothing but "girls." I think he would have loved them even if they were boys but to hear him talk, I don't know. So I know that he is now smiling down on his greatgranddaughter Ciara who adds to his favorite girls. Many times in the past two weeks when we were in Phoenix my mother would pass by his ashes and say "you would love to be here" and indeed he would have. So blessing to God for sending us yet another generation of "girls" for my dad.