October Happenings

There's just something about the crisp, chilly days of autumn...And we have filled them up to overflowing this year (there might be a pic or two!)

Traveling the back roads of America's heartland with good friends, a surprise and cherished family photo shoot, and a fabulous, much-needed girls getaway to Waco... 

We have been loved well by our family and friends!! 

In a world

where you can be anything,

Be

Kind...

My Love,
Always,
Jane

Finding Peace Tonight

Today would have been their 60th!

And for the first time in a very long time, there is peace tonight.

Dad has missed mom these past 9 years with an intensity we could never ease.  It was if he was incomplete, just half of a whole without her by his side.

He loved us and lived life well, but there was always the shadow of her passing holding his heart hostage.

Tonight they celebrate together, and there is a genuine joy in remembering their happiness.

The stranglehold of grief is released in the remembering...

So. Much. Love.

Peace for this heart tonight. 

Mother's Day Reflections...

This... Thoughts from a mother's heart... So beautifully said... Words of truth...

Being a Mother of Kids Who Can Die Young

Most of us cannot imagine being a mother who could lose her child.   Ann shares what it is like to be a mother of children with serious health conditions.  Where hugging a son good-night means knowing there is a 1 in 20 chance he may die in his sleep.  Where learning that their tiniest daughter... born with half a heart, must wait for a heart transplant... and she begs for More Time... breathing in the moments and memorizing each face with a tender fierceness. 

Ann's post is poignant and touches a chord that can resonant with each of us.  For as she explains, "The shadow of death is a strange friend: it wakes you to savouring life and every minute."

When we walked with mom through her pancreatic cancer journey we too found that the moments became so much more precious the faster they dwindled.  The inconsequential faded away and our time together focused on the only things that mattered... deeply loving one another.  I am beyond blessed to have had that time with her.  Perhaps that is why Ann's story touches me so much...


“Getting to love you makes me the luckiest.
Getting to witness your brave gives me strength to bear whatever comes.
Getting to receive your grace makes me only want to give more.
And getting to be with you, ever, whenever, however, makes everything worth it — because you are worth everything.”
                                                        ~ Ann Voskamp

Celebrating the seconds and minutes and hours and weeks, and prayerfully, the years that we get to love the ones given to us... It is the most awesome of privileges to embrace each moment, knowing how fleeting the time can be...

When we know we only get so much time — all our sacrifices are made into gifts that we get."  ~ Ann Voskamp

And loving is the sweetest gift of all...

In Grace tonight,

Love, Always,

Jane