First I come to you asking for your forgiveness for my absence from these pages but I come to you with an urgent prayer request for my Daddy that I will explain after explaining my absence.
After Shelly's death, I found it most difficult to create cards as I had very little creative spirit left in me for quite some time. Things kept happening in my life that kept me from the task of making cards and filling swaps and to tell the truth my heart sadly was not in it one bit. It seemed so trivial to make cards and care about those things in light of all that I was enduring in my life. I still owe one swap out to a group of women on Splitcoast Stampers and I promise you all (if you are reading this) that I will still fill that swap as soon as I am able. Things got so crazy that I had to step back and set all of these types of things aside and just walk away from it for a time.
This was originally supposed to be a blog about cards and yet it has become a blog about my life. It has also been very difficult to read as most of the news has been extremely morose and tragic. This year has been one of the worst years of my life, filled with sadness at every turn. I wish I were writing about fun things and bringing joy to people's faces, like I once did.
Things I once thought were tragic in my life, like the possibility of losing my house (which never sold during the summer, so we are still suffering financially over having to retain it), or even having a painful disease such as RSD, have become quite trivial in comparison to all the loss that has taken place since the beginning of the year.
First off in January, as my blog reflected, the life of Ryan Maseth filled my blog pages with the story of his tragic death in Iraq. His family, still mourning his loss, are still searching for answers to the reasons for his death and hoping to protect others from suffering this same horrible death by electrocution. I pray that Cheryl and her family get answers, restitution, assurance that no other soldiers will ever die the way that Ryan has, but most of all I wish them peace.
Next came the deaths of 2 people I also knew and cared for, as my nephews grandparents both perished in an accidental carbon monoxide poisoning incident. They left the car running in the garage by mistake and both of them died in the house together. Their family lost both the mother and the stepfather in one fell swoop and it was so sad to behold.
Then came my surgery for my second incurable disease achalasia. While it was bothersome to learn I had another illness that will progress to a point of losing my esophagus. I will deal with that if and when it happens. For now, it is not my focus once bit. The surgery corrected the terrible choking fits I was having where I couldn't breathe... so for that I am grateful. My health matters are nothing compared to the painful life losses I have had.
Next came the prayer requests that all of you are well aware of for my friend Shelly Tomasic who was also Ryan Maseth's aunt (so this family is suffering in ways we could never have imagined having lost 2 members in 6 months). She suffered a return of her breast cancer that eventually led to her death in June of this summer. Shelly's death truly tormented my spirit. It's so hard to comprehend why such a loving soul must be taken from our presence... when she shed such light and joy and the light of Christ into every one she met. My love for her since we were 9 years old and our friendship through the years was one I will always treasure. Her loss has left a huge hole in many lives and I am still learning to live with the sting of her leaving us, even if I know that through her faith in Jesus Christ she is in heaven. I know that I will one day see her again and in that I have hope.
Next came the death of my friend Capri Walker, a fellow Angel Mom (we are a group of moms who have had the death of a child - Cappy lost 3 children). Capri was only 51 years old. She lived in Kenosha, Washington where she was brutally murdered by the neighbor boy - age 14 and his 15 year old cousin. They broke into her home to steal an X-Box and her cell phone and wallet. When Cappy came upon them (they thought she wasn't home), they beat her to death with a baseball bat. I am still dumbfounded at this senseless murder of a wonderful sweet woman whom I once went away on a retreat with in the Smoky Mountains to share the loss together of our children. Many lives were destroyed that night in an utterly disgusting display of human evil.
Still reeling from that death, I learned another friend from my former bible study group, who had recently beat cancer, had died of a sudden heart attack. The irony of beating the cancer only to succumb to a heart attack is another blow to my psyche, so hard to comprehend. Her name was Kathy Hall and she was a sweet and wonderful woman who will be greatly missed by all who knew her.
My former leader of our Pittsburgh TCF chapter also passed away this summer. He was a kind man and I consider he and his wife to be friends. Even though we knew David was going to pass and he beat the length of time that the doctors originally gave him, his death still added to the pain in my all ready tear-filled life.
All of these things had led to a somewhat depressive state and an inability to be creative. When I tell people about the year we have had, it almost sounds unreal. How I wish it were and I would wake up and find it to be just that. But it's sadly a reality I pray no one ever has to face.
Now I come to you with the most important prayer request I will ask of you...
Above you see a picture of my father and me at a recent wedding we attended. His name is Tom Dolby and he was recently hospitalized because he was having trouble breathing. After finding a tumor on his lung, he was diagnosed with inoperable, incurable lung cancer. I have cried buckets of tears over this diagnosis as Daddy was already dealing with bladder cancer. I wish he didn't have to go through this painful disease. I wish NO ONE ever had to suffer from cancer. I am certain it touches the life of every living being.
My prayer request to all of you who are still out there listening... is to please pray for a miracle for him. Pray for him to lean on the Lord in this difficult time and pray for a miracle to release this cancer from his body.
My focus for the next year will be to attend to my father in any way he could possibly need me. I want to be there for him and let him know he is loved beyond words and that he isn't fighting this thing alone. We are there with him! Standing in the gap in prayer and love. We are praying hard that he can beat those odds and get this horrible cancer out of his system. Please fight with me!
Please pray with me, forgive me and let me know that you are still out there listening.
I hope one day this blog will return to what what it once was ... and that is to become my creative outlet for card making and other artistic endeavors. For now though... this life has been interrupted by tragedies and a need to love and care for those whom I lost and those who need me now.
Love you all. I missed you and hope to post more soon.
Friday, November 21, 2008
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