LEST WE FORGET

As I was sitting on my porch today, enjoying the sound of the neighbor children laughing, watching the elderly walk their dogs, and hearing the sound of busyness everywhere about me, I stopped to reflect.

It is not because of anything I ever did that I enjoy peace and safety within my home, my city, my country.  There is something far beyond anything that a normal citizen could ever do to enjoy being able to travel this broad country, start a business, go to school and any of a myriad of liberties that we enjoy but take for granted every day. 

I know that my country has many who fought and died for our own liberty and that of other countries too.  I often hear some say that we should not send our troops to foreign lands to fight battles that are not ours. I often think this: that the survivors of Auschwitz, the people who were freed in Bosnia, those, because our military fought for them, would not think that way. 

Yes, our country has engaged in battles that would seem to not be our own.  But in thinking about this, I realize that the cause of liberty and the destruction of tyranny ARE our battles.  And I think that those who fought, served not only our citizens, but mankind.  For this I am proud beyond belief.  For this I am grateful. 

And as I sit here today to reflect, I think of my ancestors who fought in the revolutionary war, the war of 1812, as Union soldiers in the Civil war.  I think of my grandfathers who fought in France in World War I.  I think of my father and so many of those I have known who fought in World War II.  I think of those of my own generation, who fought in Korea and Vietnam. I think of those who fought in Bosnia, in Iran and Iraq and Afganistan, some who are currently serving there. 

All of these gave to our country.  Not just their time away from their families, but their lives, their sanity, their bodies, their chance at a “normal” life like the one I can enjoy from my porch.  I know so many who survived the war, came home to attempt to resume life and found that the horrors of war had changed them forever and for always.  

Some gave all.  I visited the cemetery today to decorate the grave of my father and my stepmother with flowers.  My father served in World War II in the Pacific theatre.  He passed away on March 4^th of this year.  Just two weeks later, he now has a Marine resting next to him, who was barely 20 years old. I do not know where he served, or anything about him.  I just know that here is a young man, who gave his life so that I can be free to sit on my porch, listen to the sound of the children laughing, and remember that the liberty I enjoy came with a price that was paid for by our military.     

So to current and past veterans, Air Force, Marine, Navy and Army, Thank you for my freedom.  You will not be forgotten.   

Taps

Day is done, gone the sun,
From the lake, from the hills, from the sky;
Soldier sleep, safely rest, God is nigh.

Fading light, dims the sight,
And a star gems the sky, gleaming bright.
From afar, drawing nigh, falls the night.

Thanks and praise, for our days,
'Neath the sun, 'neath the stars, neath the sky;
As we go, this we know, God is nigh.

No Sniveling!

It is time to move forward.  I woke this morning from a dream about a paisley Nehru jacket, a green velvet dress and the woman who helped me make them, my step-mother, Ruth.  In that dream I had stopped to visit her, went to my work, then on to lunch and decided to run back. I have moved past grief, to gratitude, and now on to gratefulness.  But the Lord had more in store for me on this day.

It was time to take a visit to the cemetery this morning, to see if they had put down my dad’s headstone.  I woke way beyond early, made coffee, debated on whether to go or not, and then put my hair up in a ponytail and headed off to the cemetery with coffee in hand. 

It is a beautiful clear morning, but hot already, and I decided I had made a good choice to go before the traffic started.  As is with Him, there were other plans for this trip.  I put on my favorite Christian radio station, and was just grooving along with the music.  Arriving at the cemetery, I inched my way past the new graves that have been filled since my dad passed just 2 months ago.  When I finally got to Dad’s, my suspicions were confirmed that the cemetery has yet to put down a headstone.  I stood there a minute in the morning quiet.  Another confirmation. Yep, Dad is not there.  He has moved on to other realms.  It was a comfort to know this. 

 Since there is no one there to visit, I decided to take my coffee and take the long way home.  I turned the radio back on, and the song, “I will rise” by Shawn McDonald came on.  This song had brought me to tears many times during the years of watching my dad suffer in his pain and confinement.  This time I did not cry (well, just a little), but got that smile that says, “I get it God!”   Suddenly, I was alert. My ears were on and tuned.

As I drove along, I passed a car at an intersection with a sign across the front that said, “NO SNIVELING.” I chuckled at that, until, not 50 feet from there, I passed a woman in a wheelchair struggling to get on down the road.  Then I passed an elderly gentleman, clearly homeless, struggling along with his walking stick.  Then an accident with a motorcyclist.  Then an elderly man walking along picking up trash along the road. 

I GET IT, LORD!

I have little to snivel about.  I am blessed every day, with a job, with family, with friends.  I am not attempting to wheel myself down a cobbled up street in a wheel chair.  I am traveling in a nice black car with leather seats.  I am not homeless, I am on my way to my comfy apartment.  I am not relegated to picking up trash, I have a job.  But I have so much more. 

I have a God who loves me, who knows that most days I am not paying attention to the spiritual realm I live in, and some days am just plain stupid. Here is the greatest blessing of all.  He loves me anyway!   He talks to me even though most of the time I am not listening.  Then is when he posts signs clearly that say things like STOP SNIVELING!

I hope you are blessed today to hear His voice!  

From Grief to Gratitude, (From Happy Memories to Epiphanies)

                                        For My Grandmother, Ethelwynne Linn

"That I may be filled with joy,when I call to remembrance the genuine faith that is in you, which dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice, and I am persuaded is in you also." 2 Timothy 1:4 -5

(My small self on the left, defiant in my underpants, and Grandmother, praying for me on the right with Dad and Grandad ) 

I had my grandchildren over one day to visit and the boys took off, as boys will do to go down and play in the stream that runs in front of my house.  To get there, you have to traverse a steep hill full of cactus and trees with thorns.  I have many times had to pick cactus needles out of the neighbor kids and my grand children. On this particular day, however, Hannah, my grand daughter was with us.  She was only two years old at the time, and far too little to traverse the hillside, the cactus and the stream.  I told her she could not go down with the boys.

I went about my business, thinking telling her would do the trick, but when I looked up, there she was halfway down the hill, headed right into a thick batch of cactus.  In terror, I got up, ran down the hill to circumvent her path, and yelled at her to stop.  “Hannah, go back up the hill! “I shouted.   And then an epiphany occurred for me, as I watched her put her little hand on her hip, wiggle her shoulders, shake her head and respond to me, just as loudly, “No!”  She continued through the cactus patch, without getting one scratch, right down to the stream. 

The epiphany was this. Here was a little girl, who had an idea, and would not be thwarted from it.  She is just as I was at her age.  Some things are inherent.  Like stubborn wills. 

My Grandmother Linn was a stern woman, with very particular ideas about how little girls should act and dress.  She came from that generation of women who were elegant and tasteful.  She was blessed with one grand daughter who was born to be a tomboy.  I say blessed, because I cannot think of another term that she would have used tastefully to describe the trauma I put her through when I went to live with her and Grandad just before and shortly after my Mama passed away.  I say shortly because within eight months, she also went to be with the Lord.  I often wonder if the stress of having a tomboy in the household caused her to give up on living.

One particular incident will forever stick in my mind.  She was doing the dishes, with me standing beside her on the little stool, impatiently waiting for the next dish.  I must have been eyeing the great outdoors through the window, and she noticed that I was not paying attention to my chore of drying the dishes.  So graciously, she told me, “Why don’t you go outside and play for a little while?”  In truth, she might have just wanted to get things done quicker, without me to slow the process down.  I have to hand it to her, she knew what I wanted. 

I was joyous!  I had so wanted to be free, outside running around, and so out the back door I went, and straight up the big Russian olive tree that was just outside the door.  I pulled my dress up to get a better grip on the trunk and the branches and made it all the way to the top.  I was ecstatic looking out over the farm.  I could see my Grandad working in the garden, the barns, the chickens, the neighbor’s house and barns, and even a little glimpse of my grandmother’s face through the corner of the kitchen window.  And then Grandmother came out to call for me.  What did I do?  Nothing.  I just sat up there looking down at her.  As she became frantic, calling me and calling me, I repositioned myself to get a better grip on my branch, and she looked up.  The look on that poor woman’s face was priceless.  If white people could turn any whiter, well let us just say she turned nearly transparent.  And she called frantically for my Grandad.  I watched as he walked in from the garden, asking her what was so wrong.  She pointed up at me, and said, “Susan is up in that tree!”  He scratched his head for a minute, looked up at me, and said, “You ok, girl?”  I nodded in assent, and tenaciously held on to my branch.  Problem solved from his perspective.  He looked at grandmother and said, “She will come down when she gets hungry.”  It was nearly dark when I did come down, but she greeted me with happy arms and a kiss.  I never did figure that one out.  I guess she should have punished me, according to her standards, but she never did. I think she thought her disapproval of my choices was punishment enough.   

It was only many years after she was gone, that I realized how much I could be like her, and found that my sense of adventure, and my willingness to put myself at risk to achieve that adventure where inherited from the one person I always believed to be the most careful.

It was within her diaries that I found this information. Those diaries that ran over the course of many years dated 1912 when she was 26 years old to the date of her death in 1960 when she was 74 years old.  They speak of everyday life, but I found something far more interesting than her genealogic research and her detailed documentation.  On the pages of those diaries lay the record, in her own hand, of a woman who rode coast to coast on horseback alone. This at a time that women did not do these things.  I find a woman who picketed for the Suffragette movement, that I would have the right to vote.  I find a woman who was fearless in her pursuit of knowledge.  Most importantly, I find a woman who trusted God for all of her days. For running through and through those writings, she declared her love of God and her pursuit of Heaven.  

I know my Hannah has definitely inherited the Scot genes of persistence, stubborn defiance and indomitable will.  I hope she also inherits a love for Jesus, and a pursuit of His heart, that I received so graciously from my Grandmother. I did not see this in her life, most likely because I was too young to notice.  But there in her writing, in her scrap books, in her little notes on items, I found her profound love for Jesus!

      

From Grief to Gratitude ( Precious Memories, Part 1)

(Please take a moment to listen to the song by Donny McClurkin.  This song speaks of trusting the Lord, no matter what.  My Mama would have loved it!) 

I read this little saying once, and have used it so many times over the past few years.  “Don’t cry because it’s over, be happy that it happened!”  That may be hard to do, but I have attempted over the past year to remember this whenever I am tempted to lapse into grief mode again.  More specifically, one day I was driving down the road with the radio on full blast, as is my custom.  A song came on that was one of my best friends’, Rose, and my songs.  I burst into tears.  In that instant, I could also hear the Spirit of God telling me something and I opened my ears to hear Him.  “I would rather have this grief in my life, than never to have known her at all.” 

So in these dark days of getting past the sadness, I remember happy times, and most of all I pull from those insanely hilarious times or just profoundly funny times to get me past the tears.  You know those times; when someone just did the human thing: a face plant, a foible, an intentional notice of something that made everyone laugh or something that touched my heart and changed my life.

I want to put these down in writing, just in case I ever get dementia and cannot remember who I am or what I am doing.  Bear with me over the next writings, as I put into words the things that made and still make me laugh, and remind me how happy I am that those ones I miss so much happened to be in my life. I will start with my earliest memories first. I will attempt at the hilarious first, since that usually brightens me up, but I also want to reflect on the beautiful spiritual moments I spent with each of them. 

My Mama - Ada Mae Williams Linn.   

When I was about five years old, my mother was busy cleaning the house, and I was busy, following behind her and messing it up.  She was a little bit irritated with me to say the least, and although her general way of dealing with my behavior was usually soft and kind, on this particular day, she had had it with me.  She gave me a lecture, which made my little self so angry I told her I wanted to run away.  She did not argue with this, but pulled out the little overnight suitcase and started packing it for me. Then she set it down for me and said, “There you are.  All packed.”   Indignantly, I picked it up, went out the front door, and started down the street toward the orphanage at the end of the street.  In my small little mind I pictured myself living at the orphanage, and boy was that going to make her sad for talking to me that way.  It seemed I had walked miles, when I finally had to put down the suitcase, and sit down to cry at the injustice of the world. About that time, my Grandad was driving up the street and saw me sitting there crying, and stopped.  He leaned out the window and asked me where I was going.  I told him I was running away because Mama was mean to me.  He then got out of the car, came to talk with me and gave me one of his famous lectures, kindly spoken, that hit home with me.  He then picked up my suitcase put it in the car and drove back toward the house.  When we entered the door, Mama said to me, “So, you are back!  Let me help you unpack.”  I never tried running away again.  In her defense, I am sure she was watching out the window as I went down the street, and the distance was actually only two houses down from ours. I know she was watching over me as I exercised my five-year-old independence.  As she has ever since she went to be with the Lord.

And I remember too, those deeply touching moments with her, which were many.  I think she knew she did not have long on this earth and wanted to be sure that I knew where she was going and that I would be all right without her.  Just a year after my attempted leaving home, when I was six, she took me to see “Bambi”.  After the movie, she explained that although Bambi’s mother died, the father was there to watch over him.  I did not understand for many years what she meant, but somewhere in my teens that message came through loud and clear. 

The most poignant moment I remember with Mama was one Sunday morning.  I was far too ill to go to church with Daddy and Harold, so I got the pleasure of staying home with Mama.  The television was on, with a preacher named Oral Roberts, having all kinds of people come down to the front of the church to be “healed”.  I noticed people who were taken down by others to be “healed” jumping joyfully because they were now well.  My mother was watching as she sat in her chair, where, by this time in her life, most of her days and nights were spent. I curled up on the arm of that big chair next to her, watching in awe.  Then I said to her, “Mama, why don’t we go there and that man will touch you and make you well!”  

She pondered that for a moment.  Her response has stuck with me all these years and has been one of the simplest statements of trust in the Lord that I have ever heard. With these few words, she told me that she had accepted whatever the Lord allowed in her life.   

She said “Honey, if the Lord wanted to heal me, He would do it right here.”

My Mama went to be with the Lord just 4 months after making that statement.  Her acceptance of the Lord’s will in her life, no matter what it was, will always be a moment that I recall as the most profound statement of faith that I have heard. 

Lord, for the brief time I had with my Mama, and for all that I learned from her, I am grateful!

On to the next precious memory, My dear Grandmother Linn.  

From Grief to Gratitude (Not by chance encounters)

Last week I went to the nursing home to clean out my dad’s stuff, donate things, and take home what we had decided to keep.  I was first greeted by Margaret, one of the three ladies who live in the first room by the back door.  I always enter by that door, and so it became natural to greet these women and speak with them for a little while. 

Margaret, who is a stroke victim, saw me and with her one good hand firmly gripped on the wheelchair, began wheeling toward me fast as she could.  When she stopped in front of me, burst into tears, and proclaimed in her stuttering voice, “Your daddy died.  We won’t see you anymore!”   My immediate reaction was to comfort her and tell her, that I would not abandon her.  Then on to my dad’s old room, and from his roommate, Johnel, I got the same exact reaction and gave the same response.  As I walked around saying hello to the residents and the nurses, the same thing happened over and over again. It occurred to me that although this may have been a natural response from them, because of the years I have visited there, that there was another possibility.  It was totally possible that God was speaking to me through these souls.  So I made a promise to go back to visit. 

This week, I kept that promise.  I took Johnel his usual hamburger, took Margaret some CDs from church, hugged a few others and actually took the time to learn something about their lives.  As I was finishing my visit last evening, Doris came out of her room and handed me a note.  It said, “To my new friend, love Doris.”  Doris had come to me the day after my dad passed and said, “Anyone gets a hug from you, gets blessed.”  I thought about that.  The residents may feel like they are getting blessed, but mathematically speaking, who gets the greater benefit?  Each of them gets one hug.  If I hug ten of them, I get ten hugs. 

I left there feeling blest and headed to Michael’s Art store.  My office had taken up a donation for me, and purchased a gift card.  I figured I could use that to buy some canvas and paint and perhaps painting might ease that pain I feel from time to time when I think about my dad. 

I searched around, looking for the best deal and found the biggest canvas I could find.  I have plans for this, I thought.  Picked up some paint too, and then headed to my car. 

As I stood there trying to fit it in my trunk, a man wearing a backpack and looking forlorn was walking past my car.  He said to me, “You can put that seat down and put it in through there.”  I tried, but it still would not fit, and as he stood there watching my feeble efforts, He said, “My mother just died” and began to cry.  Immediately, my entire being was awakened with the need to say something comforting, but all I could muster up was, “I know how you feel, my dad just died.”  As we both stood there with tears in our eyes, it became clear to me from his speech that he had a mental disability. Of course, the usual thoughts came up- I am standing in a parking lot in the dark, in close proximity to someone I don’t know, who clearly is not with it, maybe he will hurt me, maybe he is lying so he can rob me, etcetera, etcetera. However, something else was awakened inside of me also, the dire necessity to comfort this man.  So he told me of his situation, his mom had been his caretaker, she had recently died, his family wanted to move him to Portland, Oregon, and he did not want to go, and I interrupted with, “Because you have a routine.” His eyes grew wide open with amazement, and he said, “How did you know that?”   And how did I know?  Because I was in the same boat?  Or because the spirit of God was telling me?  Over the course of our 20 minute long conversation, I learned his name was Gus, that most people would not talk to him, that he felt he was a sinner and going to hell, and that he was so lonely and grieving he wanted to end his life, but could not figure out how to do it.  I grabbed his hand and we prayed in that parking lot, in the dark, with onlookers from Michaels thinking that the man was trying to mug me. 

Was it chance that this man, who shared the same grief I had just walked past my car?  I do not think so, nor did Gus.  When we left the parking lot, he wandering off back toward wherever it is he stays, and I getting into my car in amazement, the crowd dispersing, my thoughts were that God provides chances in your life to bless you.  Perhaps in those chances you were at that place at that time to bless someone else.  Maybe those chance encounters are not just chance. The Lord knew all along what time I would be at the parking lot.  He knew when Gus would be there.  He knew when I spoke to someone at the nursing home they would become my friend.  He knew they needed me, and that I need to be needed.  But He also knew that I needed them.  To reaffirm my faith in God’s interaction with people.  To let me know He is near me.  To comfort my own heart by comforting others. 

Those encounters were not just by chance.  They were by the design of my Maker.  I might be blessed enough for others to see a glimpse of my Savior in me.

Please listen to the song and let it bless you. 

In His love, Susie  

Past Grief to Gratitude ( Learning from those who have passed on.)

Shortly after I wrote the last blog, my father passed away. Like the Good Marine he was, he heard the words March Forth, and so on March 4th, he went on to his eternal rest.
It was not unexpected.  He had been in a nursing home for 4 and  a half years, in extreme pain, but during that time, he worked out a lot of things that were left unsaid over all the years.  On Thanksgiving of 2012, we were riding in the car out to my son's house for dinner and I glanced over and saw him crying.  Thinking it must be some extreme pain, I asked him if he was ok.  He said to me " I don't know how you can love me after all that I did to you."  It broke my heart to see him so repentant, but it also cheered my heart, for here was a man making amends after so many years.  I told him this.  "Dad, I ask Jesus the same thing every day."

I learned some things from my father over the course of his life.  Both good and bad can teach us if we care to learn. From the bad, I learned what not to do.  From the good, I learned what to do.  Here are the most important things I learned from Daddy, from both sides.  

Be kind one to another, loving and forgiving, even as Christ forgave you.  Be kind to every one, but be especially kind to those of your own household.  The legacy you leave behind lives on in them, for good or for evil.

Forgive as you have been forgiven by the Lord and keep short accounts when you say or do hurtful things.  An unforgiving spirit ties you to the grudge, not the person. If you were the offender, do everything in your power to make things right. If you were the offended, forgive and leave it to the Lord.  

Love in deeds, not just in words. Mean what you say, when you say, “I love you”. Show it in the things you do. This includes everything you do, but most of all what you do for the Lord. Most people will never know how much the Lord loves them, except through your actions.

 

Never argue with a fool, and pick your battles carefully. Some people will never be convinced with words, some battles are not worth engaging in and the ones that are, are won through Christ, and not by your own opinion.  A soft answer turns away wrath.

Finish what you started. Never put off to tomorrow what you can do today.  We are not promised tomorrow.  My dad was notorious in our family for never finishing the projects he started. Nevertheless, in this most important thing, the race he began with his life in Christ, he finished well.  

Well done, Daddy, well done.   

(Please take a moment to listen to the song above.) 

    

Past Grief to Gratitude (The Unspoken Things)

                               

Last weekend I had my grandchildren over to spend the night and part of Saturday.  They came armed with blankets, pillows, toys and energy.  I was foolishly unarmed, because I assumed one would not need armor for the glorious presence of grand children.  I was already worn out from the day. After all, I am not a spring chicken. 

I soon remembered that children are not herd animals.  They enter through one door as a group, and immediately split off into separate entities, with different mind-sets and one goal; to conquer everything in their path. There is no possible way of making them go in the same direction because each of them has something different they want to do.  And they all want to do their own thing at the same time.  Within seconds of entering my abode, their stuff and mine was everywhere it should not be.  It was hard to find a trail to the kitchen. 

Then the questions. Not in orderly fashion, mind you, but in rapid-fire succession as if an automatic assault rifle had just exploded on its own, sending shrapnel of questions every which way.  My ears shut off after a while. 

I began to think what would these children, who have been raised in front of a TV and brought up with a multitude of electronic gadgets, be like if they had been raised in my era.  I shudder to imagine the mayhem. 

My grandfather, affectionately known as Grandad, was my sole parent.  He took on this responsibility when I was the tender age of six, when my mother went to be with the Lord.  Soon after that, my father remarried, and I obtained a brother who was only 4 months younger than I was.  We were not herd animals either, although we did run as if we were a wolf pack.  Rounding us up was darn near impossible. Much like my grandchildren.  And he took this on at the ripe old age of 73. 

My brother and I had free run of 50 acres, a river that ran miles and miles, plains and prairies that spread hundreds of miles.  We tromped around every one of those miles exploring every piece of dirt, every rock, every tree, inventing our own games.  Had my grandchildren attempted some of those games, I would be in a mental hospital right now.  I thought of the things my brother and I had tried.  Like the multitudinous attempt to fly, off the roof of a two-story barn with a sheet, off of cliff walls 20 feet high without a sheet, jumping into flood waters so the water could eject us on the other side of a culvert. Oh and trying to ride a bull that had no intentions of letting us. What stress we must have put my poor grandfather under, and how on earth did he survive it?

Then there were those teenage years, when I am sure, had he had any hair left, he would have pulled it all.  Those nights of waiting up, wondering where I was, who I was with, and what I was doing. 

He was, as they called it in his day, unflappable.  For all appearances, he was always calm, cool and collected.  He always had an answer for every question, and a question for all of my foolish answers.  He never argued about anything, and his word was his bond.  He was a living example of Christ. 

And yet, for as much as I admired him, following him everywhere and trying my best to emulate his example, I don’t remember ever telling him “Thank You” for the things he taught me.  To be precise, I don’t remember ever telling him “I love you”.  I suppose I assumed that he knew how I felt about him, since I wanted to spend every waking hour with him up until my teenage years. I also don’t remember having ever expressed gratitude for him pouring himself into our lives, without withholding anything of what he had or of who he was. This ungratefulness to the man who was the integral part of my life, until I found Christ. 

I remember the night that I found Christ.  It was the night after my Grandad had passed away.  I was alone in the house, in the dark, in my heartbreak.  I turned to a little book that Grandad had always read to me at bedtime.  That book, a child’s book, was about Christ, his life, his God Head, His sacrifice, and His victorious resurrection.  Although at the time, I was turning to God because I had no one else, I did not understand that it was the simple words of one caring man, the one I had lost, that pointed me to the one who would be the source of my comfort.   It was as if Grandad knew all along that God would take care of me, should it happen that he was no longer here for me. 

The grief I experienced for years with every thought of him was an interminable source of pain.  I wanted someone to blame for my loss.  Even when my own children were grown, I had figured out in my head that he could have possibly lived 120 years, so they could know him.  It was like I could not let go. 

Yesterday I figured out why.  Although there was plenty of talk about him, the things he said and did, there had never been that spoken gratitude for having him in my life.  In another round of missing him, I finally got it, and it brought me to my knees.  He had been put in my life to guide me to the One who would sustain that life.  And he had taken on that task in the later years of life, when one who is retired should be relaxing and enjoying life.  He had taken on the stress of raising an unruly, adventurous child, and had completed his task as best he could.  As I will with my own grandchildren, God willing. 

But there was still the matter of that unspoken gratitude.  The grief of losing him had hung around so long, it had overwhelmed the truth of what it meant to have him in my life. I prayed about this, and then I began to speak it out loud. 

“Grandad, I don’t remember telling you I loved you, but I think you know now that I loved you, admired you and respected you, with the very core of my being.  Thank you for all the things you taught me, from how to sweep a floor, deliver a colt or a calf, leave the wild things wild, to respecting the life of every plant, animal, and human on this planet.  Thank you for the nights spent lying out on the lawn, teaching me the constellations, and the long talks we had.  Thank you for taking on the raising of an orphan without batting an eye, and for making my childhood a fun adventure.  Thank you for your sense of humor, your diligence to Godly things, and even for those ugly pajamas you made.  Thank you for sharing your time on this planet with me.  It has made all the difference in my life.”

Then began the prayer that will begin the true healing past this old grief.  “Lord, thank you for this man you put in my life.  Thank you for leading him and teaching him, and providing all that we needed.  Thank you for your providence that made this specific man my parent.  And thank you for his life.  He showed me the way to you, and demonstrated what peace and love can come from a life well lived for you.  Thank you, Thank you, Thank you.”