How could my Mom's Birthday be Happy, when my Dad is no longer here?

Once upon a time, because He so deeply loves us and really wanted us to see, God put a face on True Love.  He allowed us to witness an "in real life" story of what "to truly cherish someone" means.  

Lucky us, most of all, who saw this up close...and when we did, we were struck with the knowledge of...this must be what life and love really means.

When I think of PapAmore' - when I think of my sweet Mom, the very first thing that comes to mind...is sacred love.  

Love that you're in awe of, love that makes you personally feel better to be around, love that must be the kind we'll someday know in heaven, a love that, just from witnessing, you'll forever carry within yourself as well.

This was not a selfish love, this love didn't swallow up each other and escape from the world...rather it gave the one it most adored on earth the passion, support and desire to do even that much more, for every life it knew.

My parents never stopped holding hands under the table...they never lost that "drown in you" gaze.  When my Dad told me that once he met my beautiful Mother, that he never once laid eyes on another woman again...I never once questioned the validity behind his words.

It was a "look what I have" love, an "I am so blessed" love, a love that continually thanked their God above, first and foremost, for their greatest gift on earth, each other, together, in love.

A never could wain love, a "we will survive" love, a never should die love...a love without end...

A love that made sense of my own life's disdain...gave the pain in my marriage, my consistently beaten up heart, the hope to believe in something more.  

Most importantly, their love assured me of God's love.  It painted a picture of how HE intended love to be.  That true love is more than just a "Bible Story" but rather truly lives and breathes even amidst our sinful world, as was consistently evident in the very ones I most adored.

How do you live without your soul mate?  

However could God take my Dad from my Mom?  

Why wouldn't He want them to continue loving one another forever?  

Didn't He see the great hope their love brought to everyone else around?

Why is the essential other half of the epitome of love on earth...no longer here?

My Mom's birthday is in 3 days...and the one thing, the only thing, she wants...is no longer here...

Happy (un)happy Birthday, Mom...xoxoxoxoxoxo

Grief Cannot Be "Scheduled"

Pain unexpected

lack of all warning

tackles me

onto the ground

Grief has no timezone

comes as it pleases

sneaking up

quietly, no sound

There is no "safe place"

no detour from hell

intense fire

forever burns

Hearts that are bleeding

souls that are shattered

hard to breathe

takes no returns

It creeps up

it sneaks up

it swallows one whole

This monster

this evil

of dirt and of pain

The thunderous roar of grief

by Wanda Lenderink, my heartbroken Mom and Wife of my Dad

AS THE CLOCKS CONTINUE TO TICK.......

Posted 9 minutes ago

WE REALIZE THAT WE HAVE SAID GOOD BYE TO THE MAN WE LOVED ....WE HAVE CELEBRATED HIS LIFE ....HERE AND IN DENVER...WE HAVE FELT YOUR LOVE...YOUR TOUCH...YOUR CONTINUED PRAYERS....WE HAVE BEEN TOGETHER AS HIS FAMILY....SHARING..LOVING ...CRYING...SINGING TO HIM AS WE FELT THE RAWNESS OF DEATH WHEN WE LEFT HIM IN HIS FINAL RESTING PLACE...

WE HAVE TOLD THE STORY OVER AND OVER AGAIN ....WE HAVE CRIED SO MANY TEARS...WE HAVE SAID OVER AND OVER ...HAS THIS REALLY HAPPENED ????

AS WE LOOK AROUND THE HOUSE FOR SOMETHING THAT WILL TELL US IT A JUST A BAD DREAM.....WE REALIZE AS THE CLOCKS CONTINUE TO TICK ..THAT THE REAL MIRACLE IS THAT WE STILL BELIEVE..AND TRUST OUR LORD...

...AS OUR HEARTS ARE BROKEN.....AND AS THE CLOCKS REMIND US OF TIME ...WE REALIZE WE HAVE DONE ALL OF THIS...

THE MILK IN REFRIGERATOR THAT WAS PURCHASED BEFORE ODEE DIED IS STILL FRESH...

AND WE SAY ...DEAR LORD HOW CAN THIS BE?????? 

AND THE CLOCKS CONTINUE TO TICK..

SO MANY PRAYED SO HARD...WE KNOW GOD HEARD OUR PRAYERS....AND YET HE DIED....

WE CLUTCH OUR GRIEF TIGHTLY.....EVEN THOUGH EVERYTHING WE BELIEVE TELLS US THAT GOD WANTS TO CARRY OUR PAIN....WE STILL HOLD TIGHT .....BECAUSE HE IS GONE....AND THE ONLY COMFORT WE WANT IS IN HEAVEN....

DEAR LORD...HELP US RECONCILE...ALL OF THIS ..BECAUSE WE LOVED HIM SO

For His eye is on the sparrow

Especially since my Dad went to heaven, I just can't seem to get this song out of my head, which makes sense considering that my Mom plays it so often...along with the beautiful fact that daughter #4, Valerie Herder, sang this song for Dad at his Memorial service in Denver.

This song seems to intimately know him, we have so much leftover love yet to give him, we longingly miss him...every hour of every day...

HIS EYE IS ON THE SPARROW 

Why should I feel discouraged, why should the shadows come,
Why should my heart be lonely, and long for heaven and home,
When Jesus is my portion? My constant friend is He:
His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me;
His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me.

I sing because I'm happy,
I sing because I'm free,
For His eye is on the sparrow,
And I know He watches me.

"Let not your heart be troubled," His tender word I hear,
And resting on His goodness, I lose my doubts and fears;
Though by the path He leadeth, but one step I may see;
His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me;
His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me.

I sing because I'm happy,
I sing because I'm free,
For His eye is on the sparrow,
And I know He watches me.

Whenever I am tempted, whenever clouds arise,
When songs give place to sighing, when hope within me dies,
I draw the closer to Him, from care He sets me free;
His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me;
His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me.

I sing because I'm happy,
I sing because I'm free,
For His eye is on the sparrow,

And I know He watches me.

- Words by Civilla D. Martin, 1905

- Music Charles H. Gabriel, 1905

Civilla Martin wrote:
"Early in the spring of 1905, my husband and I were sojourning in Elmira, New York. We contracted a deep friendship for a couple by the name of Mr. and Mrs. Doolittle, true saints of God. Mrs. Doolittle had been bedridden for nigh twenty years. Her husband was an incurable cripple who had to propel himself to and from his business in a wheel chair. Despite their afflictions, they lived happy Christian lives, bringing inspiration and comfort to all who knew them. One day while we were visiting with the Doolittles, my husband commented on their bright hopefulness and asked them for the secret of it. Mrs. Doolittle's reply was simple: "His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me." The beauty of this simple expression of boundless faith gripped the hearts and fired the imagination of Dr. Martin and me. The hymn "His Eye Is on the Sparrow" was the outcome of that experience."
The next day she mailed the poem to Charles Gabriel, who supplied the music.
Singer Ethel Waters so loved this song that she used its name as the title for her autobiography.

Cherishing the Now, Begging for More

This is the letter that I wrote to my Dad very early on New Years Day, 2009...11 days prior to his, PapAmores', death...

You gathered us around you this night, the last one of this year. All these anxious faces, all these pleading eyes, looking up to you, like we always do, drinking in your presence even more than we did before.

We're scared, we try to hide it, but it really shows, I'm afraid we're not doing that great a job...well, okay...I am, I'm the one aimless and lost, incredibly scared, terrified, devastated, crushed...pretty much praying for the end of the world.

Papa, my Daddy, you love without end, you're the rock, the beacon of light, the fixer, the healer, the widsom, the strength, you're rational and wise and smart as the universe, yet funny and silly, you're cool Papa, why...you're Papamore!

And I still run home to you...and now my girls do too, so you see...well, maybe that's the problem? Is it because He wants us to only run to Him?

And if that's true, and I'm sorry I don't think it is, but if it is, then that is just really stupid! Why, if God would be that freaking mean, well then, then it wouldn't be Him. Because the God I know, the God you've shown us in everything you do, He knew we needed someone very special to be able to run to, He knew no one else could ever do, but you.

So, when we run to you, He smiles, because He sees how very much more we love Him, through you...

Anna stayed up to watch the ball drop, "it's a brand new year" she said, then she smiled and told me that she was thinking, God has a ton of stuff to remember, so she understands that He might have forgotten that Papa needs to get better because, with all that He has going on, maybe she just needs to remind Him more that she really needs her real Daddy around for a really long time, her real Daddy, her Papa.

"And God listens to our prayers, He really does," she peacefully told me with a smile...

Of course, she's right...she's Papa's little mustard seed.

We love you, with all our hearts...and then some...

And we are okay, we're okay! I promise...xoxoxoxo

We Lost our Haven in the Middle of the Storm

Who will protect us now?

Who will provide shelter from the elements outside?

Where will we run to now?

What will bring us refuge?

We are so exposed...out here...in the rain...in the cold...in the sleet, hail and lightening...

We've lost our protection...the very essence of our being has been ripped from our souls...

There is a violent storm around us, it's destructive power is increasing...but, we have no where to run to...no haven in which to abide...

For You, our Forever Safe Place...have died

And it's so hard to look up, when your face is being smashed into the ground.

Don't You Know That My Papa Died?!

Oh, your precious and wise, Annabella...she misses you so much, Papa.  You knew her best of all, what was really going on in that brilliant little mind of hers, how much she really hurt when she said it was all okay.  She was able to easily cry with you, open up her amazing heart fully in the safety of your love.

And, it's hard to understand for a billion different reasons, why you're no longer here, whatever good could come from a plan that takes you from us?  

A plan, this now, the present, in which Anna is simultaneously forced to endure a recent single parent family/broken home while at the same time having her most sacred one, You, ripped from her life...I'm afraid I'll never make sense of that why.

So today, because I had to, today...because the entire world just keeps moving on, I had to go meet with my divorce attorney.  It's ugly on top of ugly...a cruel reminder of the constantly painful past and frequently tormented presence.  

My heart breaks to witness the additional pain this "extra" devastation further saddens those I most hold dear.

And Papa, my sweet Papa...I know that meeting with my attorney was on your "short list" that you ever so faithfully were determined to yet do...but, there wasn't enough time and I did not work very hard to make it happen that last week.  How could I?  Schedule your time to include something as ugly as this for your last moments on earth?  

I'm sorry, Papa...I couldn't...

But, Brett went with me today, I had told him he really didn't need to, however I am SO glad he did!  You would be so proud of him, Papa...he's the best big brother ever, he's even becoming a lot like you...which is very good!  ;)

It is overwhelming...we love you so much that...it's difficult to be around those unaffected by your death sometimes.  

Especially devastating to clearly know and see that the one you daily prayed for and loved, the one that I brought into your life...honestly doesn't give a damn, at all...

Anna was very upset with some boys at school yesterday, they had thrown a snowball at her and in response she had whipped right around and nearly screamed at them...

"How could you do that to me?!  Don't you know that my Papa died?!"

At that moment, I knew exactly how she felt...yet ever so helplessly, all I could do was just hug her ever so tightly and say, "I know, Papa's pizon, I know...it just doesn't make any sense at all."

Sigh a thousand sighs

"In a way I think you're lucky, it's so hard here."

My words to PapAmore as he stood at the brink of death...

Lucky to be TRULY living...Lucky to have no more tears...Lucky to know the essence of peace...Lucky to have no more fear...Lucky to know Jesus...Lucky to commune with God...Lucky to be in heaven...Lucky to not fear hell...

Lucky to feel this pain...Lucky to have our hearts shattered...Lucky to have your memory...Lucky to have been taught what only and truly matters...

Lucky to recognize the scent of your cologne...Lucky to know we're never truly alone...Lucky to be loved without measure...Lucky to feel true grace...the Grace from Him alone...

Lucky to cry...Lucky to mourn...Lucky to question...Lucky to have our very souls ache...ever since you've been gone.

Lucky to have had you at all...Lucky to join you above soon...

In just one blink of an eye we'll all be together forever...

Lucky to run to you above someday...

Lucky, most lucky...to have had been and be yours...

Lucky to have had you all...

Lucky

Because of you...

The most luckiest lucky of all...

No Regrets, God's Plan

PIANO DI AMORE - PAPA PRESENT DAY

It arrived yesterday, in the afternoon...our surprise gift from you, our PapAmore.

The delivery truck came, just as you had scheduled and previously planned, to our house.

We are overwhelmed, remarkably not surprised, but definitely overwhelmed.  

Overwhelmed by the greatness and significance, not surprised because remarkably so, it's so you...so lovingly you...that's what we knew, what we'll always have within us, the forever gift of being loved by you...

You ordered a piano for us, before you died...it's something we've always dreamed of, have been saving for years to have, never imagined that we would soon actually have as our own.  

But in your final hours, you made this dream come true.

We are forever loved because once we were loved by you.

Yesterday you gave us the gift of our dreams, tomorrow we're going to get the sheet music for "That's Amore" and sing it forever for you...

We love you, Papa

Thank You