Goodbye For The Holidays

I'm closing this blog until the first of next year. I'll be updating my photo blog and visiting your blogs, but I'm taking a break from writing. I'm putting a widget at the top of the page with posts from the past if you are new to this blog and have any interest in learning more about me and Red Pine Mountain.

But before I leave, I'd like to share my thoughts with those of you who who have journeyed with me this year.

My husband loved the holidays. He would shop for the perfect presents for all of us year round; not expensive presents, but those designed to bring us joy. He made ornaments for our tree, created beautiful, fresh evergreen wreaths that decorated our doors, our fence, our driveway. He made eggnog and baked special cookies with my son. Our holidays were steeped in tradition thanks to him.

But, his favorite Christmas tradition involved his nursing home patients. Every Christmas Eve, he would sit at the table late into the night, writing out Christmas cards for each of them. Not just a card where he signed his name, but a personal message of hope and encouragement to let them know he cared. Early Christmas morning, he would drive to the nursing home and deliver those cards and spend time chatting with his elderly patients. After he was done, he'd return to share Christmas morning with us.

Six years ago, during the holiday season, my husband was killed. I have written about his death in previous entries and I will not go into details now. As the news of his death spread, instead of Christmas cards, I received hundreds of sympathy cards from people whose lives he touched. Cards telling me of hours spent by the side of his patients as they struggled with life or death. Cards from families telling me how grateful they were for his loving care. I should have read those cards but I couldn't. I was too fragile, too locked in my own world. I put the cards in a box in the attic far away from my day to day life.

Next Christmas, there was no celebration at my house. I was still very brittle. Every show on television, every face in the crowd, everything served to remind me what I didn't have. I spent the holidays far away from home among strangers.

The next Christmas, I brought the cards out of the attic and read each and every one. My husband was alive again through those letters and as I realized how much he had meant to so many people, I felt a sense peace. I sat down and acknowledged all those letters and as I wrote my thanks, I allowed the joy of Christmas to once again become a part of my life.

Six years have passed. I have a new life now. Mountain Man shares my days, I call Red Pine Mountain home, I have found a passion for writing. Beauty surrounds me everywhere as do the animals I so dearly love. But there are still challenges. I faced a lengthy battle with MRSA and then RSDS. I had a major depressive episode last winter that brought stress to my relationship with Mountain Man.

I have tried to honestly share these struggles with my readers. None of us have idyllic, peaceful lives where every day is full of sunshine. I wanted you to gain strength from my struggles and perhaps try to find one thing in your life at it's darkest moment that can keep you going.

To me, that one thing is my unwavering faith in God.

Ten years ago, I had my life neatly planned. But I have learned there is truth in the famous adage, "Man proposes, God disposes."

Six years ago, my world as I knew it fell apart and I became undone but I trusted God, trusted that He wouldn't send any challenge too great for me to bear and that if I stopped and listened I would hear His word and gain the strength I needed to keep on living a purposeful, joyful life.

I know God has more challenges in store for me. But with each challenge He sends to me, He in His infinite wisdom, sends me the power to become more; more aware, more loving, more giving, more open.

And, I have this blog which has become precious to me as you leave your comments, share your personal struggles and hopes for your lives and as I grow in your friendships. What a gift I never thought to have.

Merry Christmas to all of you who are each so special to me as the unique individuals you are. You have brought joy to my life in ways I could never have imagined and that has been the best Christmas gift of all.