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. 

An Empty Chair at the Table...

Thanksgiving... in the midst of grieving... a hard grace to find gratitude when our hearts feel such a keen loss.

We have worked on Thanksgiving menus right alongside the planning of Dad's Memorial service.

It would seem that there is no slowing down time, nor stopping the world's spinning... Thanksgiving came whether we wanted to celebrate or not... This morning dawned grey, cold and rainy... kind of matched our mood to be honest.

Dean and Lisa graciously offered up their lake place for the gathering and the house filled up fast.

It's a testament to this family that there were more smiles than tears today!  Poppy would have been proud... and eaten way too much turkey!

There is a healing in spending time together.  A deep gratitude for the love of family and the gift of sharing the heartache as well as the joy.

The smiles were genuine.  The peace settling sure and sweet.

A Thanksgiving without Poppy came too fast... the Empty Chair at our Thanksgiving table was a painful reminder of all we have lost this season.  And I know we are not alone.

A dear friend sent me the following Thanksgiving poem earlier today.  It makes the rounds on social media every year during this hallowed season, but this year it is especially poignant for us:

So many have lost loved ones and struggle hard with the missing and the grieving every single day.  Holidays can add a layer of hurt that compounds the pain a thousand-fold.

This simple prayer turns us back to the One who is able to comfort our hearts when nothing else can.

The Psalmist speaks it well and offers a hope to sustain our faith when our grief seems impossible to bear:

I would have lost heart, unless I had believed
that I would see the goodness of the Lord
in the land of the living.

Wait on the Lord;

Be of good courage,
And He shall strengthen your heart;
Wait, I say, on the Lord!

                                      Psalm 27:13-14

God just smacked me upside the head and reminded me that He is here with us in the land of the living... just waiting to reveal His goodness.  Yes, even in the midst of the grieving and the loss... He has never left us.

The giving of Thanks begins when we open our eyes to every good gift from His hands.  And today was a very, very good gift.

My Love,

Always,

         Jane

The Journey Home...

Over these past few months, we've had much on our plate...

It has been the most heavy of privileges, walking a dear mother home... our hearts have cried, the peace in our family has trembled... and in the days and weeks since, our spirits have slowly found rest.

In between the many, many trips home to sit at her bedside, we have watched Satterwhite raise our Log Home back here in Texas... it was as if we were living 2 wildly divergent lives.

Standing vigil to the ending of a beautiful life, just as we were beginning to see our life in retirement falling into place...

And that sweet mother-in-law asked us every time we came up how the house was coming along {heart sigh}... Right up to the end, she wanted to know the details, loved looking at the pictures we brought.

She was happy for us.  It was a gift... and this house has given us a bit of that joy back. In the midst of grief there is also hope.  A nod to the good in our lives, the legacy we leave in the dreams we follow...

The Satterwhite Log Home crew arrived in October with huge truckloads of fragrant spruce logs and we watched in awe as our home came to life before our very eyes!

Picture Overload Ahead (!) Just because, well, because, it has been a dream for so long... we don't take this treasure for granted, not for a single minute!

We're halfway home... log cabin is up and weather-tight,

now the interior work begins!

Each project is a step in the journey...

and that journey is a grand adventure!

Finding that grief and joy can somehow walk hand in hand...

Praying your steps lead to a journey of joy,

to legacy living of the sweetest kind. 

My Love,

Always,

        Jane