Here it is, the last day of August! Friday
will be the beginning of a new month and 7 weeks since Cees has been
gone. I find it troubling to measure his absence in weeks but I guess
that is what one does when they are measuring time. We often age our
babies by their weeks until they arrive at the magical number of one
year. Then we start measuring by the month and then by the years.
I guess measuring one's new life of change is something like that. It's
a new year of beginnings, learning to do, to achieve and to grow in a
different way and to measure your accomplishments in steps, sometimes
little baby steps, until one gets their balance and can take off
running with the confidence that if you fall, someone bigger than you
will pick you up and set you on your path again. I continue to place my
days and steps in my faith and know that the Father continues to hold
my hand...even in the days that I feel like just staying in bed and
snuggling with the girls and thinking maybe tomorrow will be different.
I've had some really nice days recently though. My son and his new wife
left last Saturday for their honeymoon cruise to Mexico. I dropped them
off at the airport and will be picking them up Sunday evening. Can't
wait to hear of the fun that they've had just enjoying each other and
the three Mexican "Ports Of Call" they visited.
Cees' son Don and his lovely wife, Andrea' had their wedding reception
on Sunday evening and it was beautiful. In keeping with the Hawaiian
theme, as they were married in Maui last May, they had decorated with
Island flowers, pagoda table candles and hanging lanterns. The bride
made all of the decorations herself and they were lovely. They had a
Hawaiian buffet with some things we had to decipher what they might be,
but tried them anyway and a stupendous array of Island dancers. They
even had one of the elder dancers dance the Hawaiian wedding dance for
the couple and it was absolutely wonderful. I had a tough time during
part of it as I could just envision how proud and happy their Dad would
have been to be there and to see how in love they were.
On Saturday and Sunday, during the day, I took Spirit, Ruby and Faith
to a dog show. There were two shows on Saturday and one on Sunday.
Spirit took a reserve Champion Class win in the first show. I showed
Faith in Novice Puppy, a class that earns ribbons for over 3 months and
under 6 month puppies. She took Best Novice Puppy Of Breed and Best
Novice Puppy In Show in the first show and Best Novice Puppy of Breed
in the second on Saturday. On Sunday Spirit earned her first
Champion Class win and Faith took Best Novice Puppy Of Breed. My Mom
went with me on Sunday and it was kind of nice to just sit and watch
the other breeds and relax with friends. She got to see what I do when
I go to one of these things. It's kind of like watching the
grass grow for the most part with a little bit of excitement while
you're in the ring. The best is the camaraderie of the people
I share my time with...they've been such a support to me in all of
this...as have all our friends and family.
This weekend, coming up, will be my first major holiday without Cees. I
look back to most of our Labor Day weekends and remember that we were
usually doing just that. Building on the house or doing
something in the yard trying to get it ready for the Fall. Of course,
this year, having the trailer, we probably would have been going
somewhere to just hang out and enjoy the girls and the trailer. He
always liked to travel and was looking forward to being able to do
that. I think I'll probably just hang out with the girls,
maybe go to the beach one day out of the three and let them run in the
surf. They really enjoyed it the last time they had the
chance. I'll keep a long line on the puppy though...knowing
her and how much she loves the water, she'd probably try to swim to
China!
I think that the reason I've had a more
difficult time this past couple of weeks is the upcoming service
planned for Cees' committal. We've had the memorial service but having
to wait for the burial until after the weddings and receptions and
Labor Day has made it more difficult to put closure on this and begin a
healing process. Perhaps when that has happened and we have a place to
go spend some time to reflect and remember it will help that
process to begin. In most of the readings I've done on
grief. They have compared it to a journey, one that takes
time but a process that can't start until there is a place to mark it
by. I've also begun a twice monthly grief support group in hopes that I
can learn from those that have dealt with such a loss and recovered or
are recovering from it, and how they've been able to put things in
perspective and gone forward.
Someone sent a beautiful inspirational e-mail to me last
week. One of the paragraphs kind of tied in to the sentence
my daughter sent me. "When God closes one door, He always
opens another, it's just the hallways that suck." The other
sentence that was sent was, "If one stands and looks at the door that's
been closed too long, one often misses the door that's been opened" I
guess I would think that there has to be a period of standing in the
hallway for each of going through a situation like this. But we can't
keep looking back, we have to go forward and try to find the door
that's being opened for us. Those doors are the ones that
offer life and continuation for us all. Cees would want me
and his children to go forward and to become all that he knew we were
and could be. In doing this we honor him and his memory. I
know he was very proud of all of us. I think this is the one
thing that keeps me going forward. Otherwise, it would be so
very difficult.
I guess I'll close for now and bundle the girls off to bed. They're
just getting used to this new schedule and if the news comes on and I'm
still sitting here. I have four pair of eyes staring at me
from the living room saying, "Okay, enough is enough! We're
tired and we want to go to bed."
