Friday, December 6, 2013

After Thanksgiving Thoughts



    Well, since I am writing this and you are reading it, we both survived Thanksgiving!  But I don't think saying I "survived" Thanksgiving is accurate because the it turned out to be a very good day.  Of course, I had to actually take my own advice and ask for help!  Interesting how the Lord does that sometimes - making you take your own advice!  But that was OK, too, because my need for help involved others and they were willing to do whatever I asked of them.  It was a blessing. 

     The greater blessing was spending a few hours with our family and sharing a meal.  It's interesting how eating a meal together seems to allow for a flow of conversation, a catching up on what is going on in the other family members' lives.  Perhaps it is a feeding of the soul as well as the body.  My best memories of my Grandmother Grubb are the great meals she could pull together from the simplest of ingredients and her interest in hearing about everything us grandkids were doing. 

     The memories are the best part of being together.  They last and can be touched and revisited whenever we want.

     My brother's wife, Tina, missed our gathering this year for the first time.  She choose to spend the day at the nursing home with her mother.  And she made the right choice, for her mother is in hospice care and only being given comfort medication.  If this is the last Thanksgiving Tina has with her Mom, then she spent the day making memories that will be more precious than gold.

     Should the Lord not return in our lifetime, we will all someday face these Holidays and special occasions without the ones we love. So we must choose to make the most of the time we have with our loved ones and how we act and react to the situations we find ourselves in, for we do not need to carry unnecessary guilt and regret into our tomorrows.

     We will not have these days again.  Once they are gone, they are gone forever.  We need to do the things today that will make the precious memories we and others carry forward into tomorrowCaregiver, the moments may be hard while we are going thru them, but the blessings are worth the effort!  Keep looking up!