Ice Cream Castles in the air.............

Last nights post was kinda weak ....sorry bout that one ....I was tired. Tonight I am gonna hit on a few things ......

What do you save?
I had a long talk tonight with a good friend of mine about the pros and cons of saving things....She does not save much ...I do ....I love to read and so I always try to buy my books in either hardback or trade paperbacks. After I read them, I keep them. I have shelves full of books .....in fact I only recently started looking for more shelves. Books are wonderful. How can you not keep them ??
Another thing that I save and have only recently found out that many people do not and that is old Christmas decorations. You know the ones I am talking about; the little cheap nothing junk you made at VBS during the summer of 1979 at Woodland Presbyterian Church in Notasulga, Al.
But heres the kicker ...they aint junk. Thats the stuff that makes us....US . It is the things that thread us together as a family. It is going to your grandmothers house in December and helping decorate the tree. The same way you have done it for all your life. It is getting out the crushed,wrinkled,spotted angel made out of clothespins and coffee filters and sprinkled with glitter. Maybe it's the ornament made out of pipe cleaners, glue and metal bottle lids. I am 32 years old and I still get excited to take out the little snowman with the pointy yellow hat, the same one that was one on a strand of lights. One year they stopped working so my Grandadaddy and I took each one off and made ornaments out of them. His idea was that we had them for so long it would be just wrong to toss um. Anyway maybe I am the only one who feels this way.

FAMILY......

I recently read in Emilys blog that everything in some way always seems to come back around to family. I believe that also. Our family can be the very first to get on our nerves sometimes but we always come back to them. I know I do. Thats the way it is supposed to be.

Personally......

It has been four months and change since Daddy died. I can sit and remember the many times that I had given thought to the idea that our family was very blessed. That we had it . Comfort, love, security. I long for that again. I look for the day when I can go out with friends and actually have something to say. To be able to function on some level outside of a few close friends and work. My heart longs for that again. My heart longs for Daddy to come and let us know that is all going to be fine. I would still worry when he used to do that but somewhere in me I knew it would be ok. He is dead . Normal shattered by seperation.
I think I am in the darkest place in my life. Grief that still keeps me away. That keeps me from being open and honest with friends and family . I wake at night after dreaming of being with Daddy the last time. It is still hard for me to realize that one minute he was here and the next he was gone . His energy and love of life was away from us. There are times when I still dont understand the eternal. I know his job was done the second he slipped away but seperation clouds what should be a happy thought that he is in the Kingdom with God.
Life looks different now.
I close with a couple of lines of lyrics from a Joni Mitchell song...
"Well somethings lost, but somethings gained......In living every day"

and one last thing......74 days till North Carolina