Out of the Basement

I left the lights on all night for you, just like I always do! I knew you would come carrying all those treasures with you. Sweeping in here carried by the strength of such resolve to please and to excite. Once again, you succeeded. It always seems to build as that moment approaches... its expected, yet seems new each time the gift is unwrapped. Every thought and deed work in perfect harmony to create yet another most perfect of moments. As I look around I see it all before me and I am again swept away to so many yesterdays filled with so much joy... so much bittersweet joy. I see her standing at the kitchen sink. I see him setting up yet another whatever it is to be set up... I miss them both especially on these today's, but you come back and share them with me. You are so thoughtful and kind to me. I see mine and Angie's first and many Christmases... the good & great ones, as well as a few we endured together that were a little harder. I see my kids and their kids... thei

So I was supposed to be in Orlando all week... things happen... things change. The call came and  my plans did just that; they changed. Now, at midnight,  I sit in a chair in a hospital room while my world lays in her bed for the night... groggy from her meds and trying to rest before her surgery in the morning. It wasn't planned but things happen... things change. I checked out of my hotel in a whirlwind, racing to the airport to catch a flight destined for delay due to a faulty starter that hindered the right engine. I was able to keep my phone on and waited for every text message from the emergency room I was desperately trying to get to. I looked at my phone and realized that in my haste, I had forgotten to grab a charger cable... I had a phone... I had a Mophie charger... but I did not have the means to connect the two! I asked half the people on the plane. No charger.  The other half had deplaned. The flight attendant saw my distress and tried to help. Still no charger.  M

I had to say goodbye to Dekker tonight. I would say it is was unexpected... sudden... but it wasn't. He was 13 years old and an old man... for a dog. But,  he was an old man from birth.  He didnt liked to be held,  but he didnt like to be alone. He was quiet and seemingly pensive, but could let loose and tear through the house with the best of them. Itll be different with him gone.  I wont have to wash that bath mat nearly as often that he liked to sneak off and relieve himself on... Morning coffee wont be the same, there'll be too much room on the love seat in our bedroom where he crowded me every morning for the last 13 years! My office will be quieter without that old dog snore of his as he slept on the floor waiting for Angie to get home. It's already quieter... too quiet. I will miss him. Alot. I rubbed his nose as he went to sleep... he hated that.   I loved it... I loved him. Goodbye old man.

"Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow, it empties today of its strength." Corrie Ten Boom From our devotional this morning. Reminds me of one of Angie Stewart Callahan favorite songs, Fear Is A Liar. I hope today to live in such a space that I am not drained by the future not yet known nor the anxious impending never realized. May we live joyfully and peacefully in the blessed now. Thank you Lord in advance... Good morning.