Yet another death in my circle of friends...this time my childhood friend Diane's..her husband of 50 plus years who had his last struggle with lung cancer yesterday. Though they live 10 hours away and I don't see them even once a year..though did visit them in February this year...the sense of loss is there. It will change my relationship with Diane...and already has...but what and how ??? That's part of grief...and one of the places I sense the Lord is speaking to my heart to trust HIM for what tomorrow...today holds.
The big deal?? Diane and I have emailed each other every day for many years...sometimes with a text on something super current....Yep, one of the things the LORD has been speaking to my heart about. How many times during the day I "talked with Diane" and went over the days' activitiy that I would share with her that night. More than once I was remeinded HE would like me to talk to Him about that.
Father, this is what I'm doing as I write here today...pouring my heart out to you..as the unexpected tears try and escape from my eyes! I came in from the garden and left the many chores undone to sit down and
rest". I found myself shaking, and yet my blood pressure is within normal range.
Is this grief? I posted this morning that Niel's death in Idaho yesterday was the 3rd death in my circle fo friends in 14 or so days. Jerry was #2 and I got that notice at 8am two weeks ago from Cheri. I did the officiating at their wedding many years ago and was one of the first to do things with Cheri when she arrived from the Phillippines. Our husbands had breakfast together almost every morning for over 10 years and there were various times the four of us gathered together, sometimes with another couple or family friends. Cheri was a part of the three some of us wives of the breakfast crew and once a month we shared together about what was going on and the past 2 years it has been about Jerry's ongoing battle with Parkinsons. Like Niel who was on Oxygen two years ago when my husband Gene was at the end of his battle with lung cancer..Jerry was already seriously affected by Parkinson's and struggled to talk though he remained a friend and he and Cheri were the last ones to visit Gene and hear his last word What time is it? as he raised his hand questioning.
Now all three no longer are on the earth....leaving yet more empty holes in the month of September.
The other death this month has brought more emotional involvement than I ever expected: the death of my late sister's husband Les. Les and Jean chose in 2009..16 years ago to separate themselves from relationship with me and they never opened the door over those years though I repeatedly knocked and prayed blessings on them, longing for contact with my only sibling. My sister passed in July of 2024 and I received notice of it 5 months later through a cousin. I had few details of anything of her life the last 16 years but did learn that her husband Les had cancer and was under the care of my niece. No contact. Two weeks ago, on a Friday I received a note again from my cousin telling me he had receied information from my niece that her dad, my brother in law had passed away that day. There was little information given to my cousin though we did talk on the phone and shared the few tidbits that my cousin had gleaned from various sources.
Since in 2010 I had contacted my niece and asked if she would be interested in maintaining contact since she was my only blood relative left. Her brother had tragically passed away years before. Her answer was NO, there was nothing to gain and it wasn't worth risking her mom's ire. Yes, that hurt and was a shut door that I did respect even after hearing my sister had passed and now my brother in law.
I knew my niece had been on a spiritual journey and many changes had taken place in her life. It was time that I could find her blog and see just what had been going on in her life. And then the text came from Kristine, my niece, telling me, in case I didn't know, that her dad had passed away and she included her phone number if I was interested in contacting her. Later I text her and learned she was away visiting her grand children and it was agreed she'd contact me when she returned home. Over a week later, that text came in inviting me to call her. How I'd prayed and trusted that it would be in HIS plan and HIS time when I was ready...and learning to trust HIm about what to talk about, though I had that conversation multiple times in my head!!
3:30 came and the phone call was made and what joy and thanksgiving came with it!! There was a connection, there was forgiveness, there was mutual sharing of hurt and pain that came from the rejection that affected most anyone that had been around my sister. I was allowed to see how much my brother in law suffered at my sister's hand...way beyond anything I had seen over the years when they had visited, but yet understood because of things I saw and heard my sister do to both her husband, her parents and to me her sister. Little did I know the suffering my niece had gone through at my sister's hand...I began to understand what a blessing it was that they had completely broken contact with me for 16 years...I was spared 16 years of what was ongoing chaos and hurt and pain that was inflicted on people in relationship to my sister.
And I would have not known this had my brother in law not died in the care of my niece. He would not permit her to let me know when my sister died, so deep were the lies that he had bought into about my sister and I and our parents, as well as the lies that he was going to face that he had bought about the treatement of his own daughter and grandchildren. But now...it is understood...and what I have learned about those years, helped heal the absence of her presence in my life, seeing through my niece, how dangerous and painful any contact with her would have continued to be.
Through it all...I've learned to trust in Jesus, I learned to trust in GOD!! Had I not been afficted I would not have known how much I needed Him, and how deep was my self-sufficiency and dependence on other people other than my loving Father!!!
So as I write today, Im not shaking as much as I was when I started...my heart is somewhat comforted, as it tends to be more aware of the empty places left behind these people's absence...and now my head is beginning to understand the heart ache and is open to the comfort of Holy Spirit flowing over my inner man with the comfort only a Father can give...and the love I never knew from my human father and which I reaslize in so many ways, my only sister also never knew that kind of love and acceptance from our father....nor was she ever open to Heavenly Father's prescious love but seemed to fight it and spew anger and rejection upon anyone who had any semblence of Father's love and care for her. Little by little I am coming to understand...helps me understand some of my own journey.
The past two years since Gene passed, EVERYTHING in my life has changed...the lay of the land, the property had more than 20 broken down, rusting car bodies atter his death and every building on the property was filled with parts of cars and engines and other items that took most of 4 months and the help of some god given men to help clean up. My dear dog Nala who had previously been my daughter's dog and we got Nala when they moved to Germany...Nala passed away in August of 2024. And shortly after she passed, I ended up with a spiral break of my right femur and the tip of the previous hip implant that required major surgery, hosptial stay followed by rehab and then home. Shortly after I got home and still unable to be outside, drive, etc. my dear friend Charmaine who had lived in her RV next door to us for 5 years, got sick, went to the hosptial with Covid and 11 days later was placed in an adult family home with all knowing due to her dementia she could never live alone again. So within 4 days of being home from hosptial, I was now totally alone on this property. One daughter 45 miles away and another across the united states, and one locally, working, dealing with her addiction and a nasty divorce...
Changes.....it is almost a year since I found myself all alone on this 8+ acre piece of property. I just had my year's follow up appointment from my broken leg/hip surgery and I am doing well with no major issue from that surgery, though the leg still is healing and my walk will never be the same. I wear an "alert button" which just this morning was activated and while I was able totell the "base" that I was OK...somehow that person failed to cancel the alert and the first aid unit showed up....I had been vacuuming and didn't hear my phone so there were numerous calls from the 3 daughters who also had gotten the alert...
I have a new dog...her name is Missy, a one year old black lab with pittie mix, with beautifu black shiny boday and pure white feet...who is still much of a puppy. Life changes...and honestly time will tell whether getting another dog , a 1 year old, was wise or the stupidest thing I did at almost 80 years old. She is a good dog..but still a puppy and learning what she can eat off the counters and not get caught...and how far she can go in the fields and still find her way back.
So....yes, I am grieving....and I am experiencing the comfort also of my Father's great love and care for me as I review all He's done and how he's been with me these last couple of years especially. It's just not what He's done for me...but as I sit here, I realize there are some major changes IN ME....I'll know more about them in the days ahead....
Through the death of my sister and her husband, and new contact with my niece, I have been confronted afresh of how much of my life was spent trying to please my sister, who was 4+ years older than I.
That is another story some of which I have written about. But since Les' death, for some reason I've been especially seeing how I've looked to my friends and acquaintes in various ways to fill that gap of acceptabnce I never had from my sister, and to some degree my parents, but especially my father. My mother lived with me the last 6 months of her life and those were 6 mos of great healing of the little girl that her mother never understood and who didn't see her as the person so VERY different from her sister. Those 6 mos especially my mom saw ME...and she LIKED me, and liked being in my home, and liked the way she was treated and knew she was loved. My sister visited for a week and was able to care for my mother during the days while my daytime caregiver got her teeth pulled. So mother had my sister from 8am til 8pm when I got home from work 4 days a week. I knew that week was IN GOD"S PLAN, as it "just happened" that my sister's coming to visit cooicided with the caregiver's need to get her teeth done....GOD"S plan...and it was with that inner peace that the week passed without what I thought was minimal conflict. I came home and my sister retired to her room...and I tended to mother's bedtime and needs throughout the night...as she would need help to use the commode beside her bed.
I was so thankful that the time went well....one major clash over my sister needlessly permanently damaging my mothers dentures which left my mother unable to wear them! But there was little other problems for which I was so grateful...............little did I know what would come out of this....
My husband Gene was the one to take my sister Jean to the Portland airport at 1pm that day. After they were gone, my mother sat down in the big leather chair and with a sense of great relief, said " I never thought 1pm would come!" My mother had finally seen the difference betweenn her two daughters and the difference in who we were and how we treated people. When mom was with my sister, she was treated as if she had no mind of her own and she was under the control of my sister. It had always been that way, I had noticed. And family confirmed that when my talkative mom visit at my sisters as she did for a couple weeks every year or so, she had little to say to anyone, even her grandkids who didn't get the opportunity to know her, becauses MY MOM never talked to them. That was so unlike my mom, as I knew her who clearly had a mind of her own and functioned on her own...except around my sister...and there, like my brother in law, she somehow became silent out of fear.
I was never like my mother or my brother in law. I was ALWAYS in trouble. There was NO pleasing my sister, and there was no doing anything wrong either...one didn't have to "do something" to incur her wrath or the blame which she'd attribute to me as she whined to our parents...often in the presece of guests who always believed my sister...
I was in my mid 30s before I began to understand that I was " foolishly trying to please my sister." My husband at the time Chuck, whose attitude with my sister was F#$%^ it....and while I never used that expression, I learned slowly to stand my ground about what was important to me...and the result...the upset was on her...she couldn't handle that she wasn't in control of me and went out of control herself and, to the observation of people watching...no longer could I be the blame..because her choices didn't upset me as it always had in the past. I didn't change my course because of her potential upset.
One time she came up from California to do my mother's 90th birthday party which was to be celebrated at the local church where she attended. She made it clear, SHE WAS IN CHAraGE,, she would bring with her everything that was needed.....and she ordered the cake and took care of the arrangements. On Friday prior to the event on Saturday, I had had lunch with my dear friend Joyce and she loved my mom. And wanted to do something....flowers....could she get flowers. Jean had ordered flowers I believe for the cake table....and that was it. My friend Joyce realized no flowers had been planned for the many round tables and went around town and picked up small plants of chrystantemums and other fall colored flowers and first thing Saturday morning went down to the church and put them on the tables. They looked beautiful and welcoming and did not take away from the cake table which had it's own colors. My sister was visibly upset the whole day...so visibly upset that the relatives that came from out of town, asked what was the matter with her...and was well aware that she had also distanced herself from me. Another time my husband Gene asked that there be coffee available for him and anyone else that wanted coffee in the kitchen at a family gathering my sister was "in charge of". She exploded when she found out my mom had gotten the Mr Coffee going in the kitchen....
By this point...I had gained enough sense of my separateness from Jean that these things while not pleasant didn't shake me to the core...they had become increasingly about her..and others saw this. In those days, my mother was still terribly upset when Jean got upset...mom loved my sister and the anger and hurt cut my mom deeply but she wasn't yet able to see how that had played out over the years.
One of the last things my mother said while at my house the last months of her life, was Meri, we didn't prepare your sister for your birth".....she had begun to understand what had gone "wrong" so to speak with my sister. But that is another story...
Meri September 20, 2025
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