THIS WEEKEND

The weekend including or near the dates of August 5 & 6 has long been my favorite weekend of the year. August 5 is the anniversary of the happiest day of my life, my wedding day. Then, our anniversary was always followed up a day later with my birthday. With the combination of days like that it always made it easy for me to remember our anniversary. I have many treasured memories about the ways we celebrated that day. When the kids were younger we would often take our summer vacation week to include these days. Carol and I would sometimes have an overnight get away but we would always go to a nice place for dinner. Good times! I was so blessed!

This weekend will be different, as all of life is different. I know I can survive it. (There’s that word again – “survived by”) I survived it a year ago. This is my second anniversary/birthday without Carol. Last year I stayed busy, the kids and I had a family reunion to attend, and I was pretty much numb to the pain. This year would have been our thirtieth anniversary. We had pointed to this one as the year we would take a trip or do something extra special. We shouldn’t have waited!

I am moving on. Letting go has been difficult but it is happening. After this sojourn in the “valley”, life is exciting again. It’s exciting to see growth in the lives of our kids. It’s exciting to build relationships with the new people God has placed in my life. It exciting to think of a future that holds the promise of happiness and not just sadness.

The memories of this weekend, of these celebrative days, at times, seem so distant. At times they seem like another life, a lifetime ago. At other times it seems like yesterday. It seems like just yesterday we did things like leaving the kids with Mom and Dad and spending the night on Mackinac Island.

All the memories, whether they seem distant or like they happened yesterday are very precious to me! Lord, let me keep them forever!