the sting of regret and the hurt of goodbye...

it has been along time since i have written, and while my blog has been still, my life has been anything but.

in fact there has been so much that i just have not known how to speak

i wanted to write something special for those who have been special to me

but sometimes when a heart hurts, it is silent

sometimes what we feel is not pretty or profound.
sometimes it is just pain and confusion and....
regret

on December 24 while i sat in the Christmas eve service at my church and listened to the wonders of the season
my grandma slipped silently from this world...
an unbeliever lost forever

i went to see her before the end
i sat with her
but i didn't know how to reach her,
i could hold her hand, and i did
i wanted to make her a believer
i wanted to force salvation on her
but i didn't
i couldn't
it seems that if someone lives their life without God they die that way too

maybe i should have pushed
maybe i should have forced it
maybe i should have done something
anything...
yet in those moments i just felt helpless

the truth is i should have shared my faith with her many years ago
i should have shown her Jesus when she was busy living
and not waited till she was consumed with dying

and i am filled with regret
it sits beside me and whispers to me daily

it has become a unwanted companion

we had to re home titan
and i was thinking how i regretted getting him
how if we had not gotten him and had kept krinkle my son would not be so sad
and everytime he says "i miss krinkle, krinkle was MY dog"
regret snuggles in a little deeper

and then while the sting of letting titan go was still new
 krinkle passed suddenly away
and my heart exploded
and regret flowed out like poison

i wished i could just let it flow till it was all gone
but i know it doesn't work that way
the more it flows the stronger it becomes
till it plants itself permanently in my heart

and because i cant be sad all the time
because i cant cry forever
eventually it will turn into bitterness and anger
and the poison of it would become my legacy

so i must choose to let regret go

so i try to look at the other side
there is always another side
and if i can shake regret for a moment
if i can look past the heartache

maybe i will find relief

maybe i will see that God is truly in control
that regret changes nothing in the past, it simply taints the now

i know that God will not take someone from this earth who will choose Him
 until they do choose Him

i don't know if my grandma made that choice.
i think she did not
but i don't know that
maybe i should have done more for her
but i could not give her my faith
i could not lend it to her either
and i must come to terms with the fact that we all make our own choice about eternity
i can choose to remember her in life
and honor her right to choose

what i do know,
is that we made the right choice for krinkle, in giving her the loving family that filled her last 16 months of life

maybe we should not have gotten titan,
but even had we not gotten him

we still owed krinkle her own family
we owed her a life filled with love and peace and security,
she deserved to be the only dog
and i can find joy in knowing that she was loved
that she found what she needed and thrived in her new home
 i can miss her in peace
and honor her in my sadness
goodbye krinkle-pop-scally-wag

and good bye grandma Anderson

i will miss you both

yesterday

she turned six
my tiny baby bird who used to need me for everything
as we walked thru the mall to build-a-bear with her two new friends from school
she didn't hold my hand
she just walked along with her two besties
all excited about her big adventure
and being six

and my hand felt ~empty~
and i did the math while we walked
6 years
that's one third of my time with her in my home
one third is done already
and i suddenly realised how very quickly it ends
all my moments with her are so precious
and so fleeting

she is so wonderful
my beautiful daughter
so caring
so filled with life and emotion
with a short fuse, yet so quick to forgive
always making sure someone isn't left out
wanting to make a friend of the bully so he will learn how to be a friend
and making a friend of that bully
maybe his only one
yet setting boundaries "if you push my other friends on the ground, i cant be your friend, you have to be nice"

i am crying as i write this and she noticed and came over with a note that was
just the word MAMA with a picture of a broken heart
she wanted me to write on the back why i am sad so she could help me feel better.
i drew her little with a arrow to her big
she understood immediately
and is now working on "the Avienda shrink machine"

sometimes i can not even believe how much God has blessed me

she is now getting into the shrink machine, so off i go to get my tiny baby bird back :)

happy sixth birthday my sweet baby bird!
i love you more than i could ever begin to express

thankyou

i cant get my blog to allow me to comment on it, but i have been so blessed by the comments i have received i just want to say thank you.  i read every comment and am so very blessed by them.  i also want to say the tiny birds that have claimed my yard are house finches, they have had several little families this summer and all the babies come to my yard, they learn to sing, they bath in a bowl on my table, they fly all crooked and proud, and their mama and their papa feed them on my garden arch.  i also have sparrows aplenty, i know some people don't like them as they are bossy and messy, but my kids are bossy and messy to, so that doesn't bother me a bit.  i love the sparrows and they seem to like me too, they will nap in a fuzzy pile on my bench.  and i cant help but remember every time i see a little bossy grey sparrow throwing my seed all over, that not a single one falls from the sky the our Father doesn't know.  truly i am so blessed this summer, even with hail and wind and slug (still just the one) now aphids and grasshoppers, my garden blesses me, and my kids, and my birds.
so once again, thankyou for reading, and thankyou for commenting even tho i can't comment, i am blessed.

mommys garden makeover

well i remade the garden...

my wonderful husband who also happens to be a most excellent daddy made a tiny faerie arch that very closely mirrored the big one gracing my garden

and Lowe's supplied all kinds on mint and lemon balm and oregano at 70 cents a pot

my trips to the tilly and my sense of whimsy added all kinds of faerie furnishings

and imagination did the rest

when she heard about the lettuce she cried

when she walked out to the garden

she bent quietly down and looked thru the arch

and

sitting in front of the faeries garden,

bent low and completely silent i wondered if i had done enough

then she says in aww

"oh mommy i wish i could shrink down and go inside,

 i could walk the path and maybe go visit  frogs house."

and i understood

i had done enough

i had healed the broken

this time anyway

and i thanked the One who heals the broken every time

what i never told you before

is that while in the middle of pulling the flattened lettuce out

i found a slug

only one

but had it not hailed...

well nature would have done a whole other makeover.

natures garden makeover

i planted a garden this year

it was a big deal, my husband had to make me a garden first

we planted trees

we built a fence

and my daughter and i planted the seeds

and we watered...          and we waited...            and waited

when you are five a garden takes a long time to grow

when you are 39 a garden takes a long time to grow
but it finally paid off

we made an oasis with our bare hands, and sweat, and muscle, and determination

she was so excited that finally after all the waiting we would eat the veggies we had worked so hard to grow
and she ate a few pieces of lettuce and loved them

then she went to grandpas for a holiday
and while she was gone,
nature did a garden makeover

nature is brutal

and her destruction is complete in the tiny lettuce patch

and i was heartbroken
for my garden
and for my daughter

there will be no lettuce when she comes home

and as i sat ~ stunned ~ in the midst of the garden massacre,
something dawned
a new idea
a freedom that comes from knowing i can't make it worse
but maybe
just maybe
i can make it better

maybe i can make magic where destruction has been a victor

maybe she will come home to an enchanted garden
maybe....

so i start,

with only an idea
a hope
a dream

this epic garden makeover will continue in my next post...

the missing...

i was sitting at my computer,
recently moved to in front of the window so when i look up i can see my birds.
it was getting dark and as i glanced up
i saw the darkness rolling in,
the clouds swirling,
a storm is coming,
i feel it in my aching collarbone,
but even more i can feel it in my very being.
i watch the clouds roll, while my dear friends blogs mix pod plays in the background,
i love her blog, i love her heart, and i love her mix pod, she somehow finds the music of my heart,
if i ever figure out how i will post a link here.
i don't know the song but these words come wafting over the airways as i watch the storm approach
"give me Jesus, you can have all this world, give me Jesus"
and for a moment i can almost see through the veil that separates this world from heaven
and my heart is overwhelmed
and i suddenly see how very close my dear friend in heaven is
and how very far away
and i miss her
i miss her with a renewed grief that wants to pull me under

and i think how she would love my yard

and how she would know the real name of my

songbird i named tangerine

and i am so happy to have had her

and i miss her so much

as i watch the clouds swirling
i feel my heart do the same
a storm is coming

and already i miss the sun

but i remember

 "give me Jesus, give me Jesus, you can have all this world, give me Jesus"
and i look through the storm ...   the sun is coming

the Son has come

my fathers hands, and other memories

i don't have alot of memories of my dad,
when i was young he was working,
when i was older it was complicated,
but i do have some
and i cherish them

building me a bike from parts found in a jumble at grandpas
going for a walk down the gravel road
exploring the old school house
there was a bee
he protected me
holding his big hand with my little one

being stranded on the roof of one of the farm buildings
(it was a bit to high to take off in flight from, the fence worked better)
him rescuing me
taking apart the rabbit run
my tooth is still chipped
the swimming pool he put up for us even tho he was not a swimmer
the hours he spent keeping it clean and usable
watching him put the drops in the tiny bottles to see if it was safe for us to swim
the firepit and roasting wieners
he was always so good at the roasting
him telling me there was one boy i could not date
dating him anyway only to find his advice was sound

my dad didn't talk alot
at least not to me
but when he did he had something to say worth hearing
i only wish i had listened more closely

for a time we were not close
for a time i thought he did not love me at all
for a time i thought i did not love him either
i was wrong
on both counts

now as i watch him grandfather my little ones
i am amazed at how he loves them
and i am sad i lost so much time
and i am glad to be making new memories

walking up the steep hill behind his house
him holding my not so tiny hand in his still very large one
picking rocks on the beach
the waterfall (and seeing it in two very different seasons)

the view from the playhouse
more moss than my creative mind knows what to do with

Christmas morning while my little ones eat chocolate (and so do i)
cheesies

lola injuring my precious gypsy
him worrying about how i will react
a cup of coffee and homemade bread
that he made

soup made from a box of weeds
garden gnomes
his sense of humor
his love of nature
that i love it too

my dad has been many things to me in my life
but there are three words that best describe him now
grandpa
dad
friend

i am truly blessed ~ and i finally understand that.
i love you dad