Walk With Me

This week was a hard week; it felt like a really long week. Today was a long, heavy heart day. As Christmas draws near, there's a sadness in my heart that is hard to overcome with Bing Crosby singing White Christmas, decorating cookies, or watching Frosty the Snowman with the girls. Then I think to myself how much worse it will feel when Dad is not here.   I know I’m not alone in feeling this way this season. So many others dealing with loss. Right now, I so badly miss hearing my Dad's voice. How heartbroken I am now when he looks at me as though he wants to speak and nothing comes. I wish he were here speaking to me telling me it will be okay, because he would be the one to tell me it will be okay and I would believe him wholeheartedly. I remember playing piano for one or two of his Longest Night services. While my heart aches to hear his voice, I'm grateful to have his written words. In my mind, I can hear him speaking these words and that is what I have n

I walked out the door this morning, the dog on leash and feeling hopeful for a quiet walk in the woods and a good reset to the week. I came home feeling defeated. Any other day it probably wouldn’t have mattered much. Even now, I know I’ll be able to call the company and they’ll send a replacement or we’ll just have to buy a new one. But I lost the dog collar remote and dang it all if that wasn’t the straw the broke the camel’s back. I searched for over an hour. Retraced my steps multiple times, kicked away snow, and knelt down near indents in the snow thinking it was where the remote had landed. Debris on the snow just played tricks on my eyes and I’d get this little glimmer of hope only to be let down when I got close enough to see it was a stick or a leaf.  (Meanwhile, the dog gleefully running and playing through the woods.) But to lose something yet again; to be wandering around there in the woods feeling lost, looking for something that was lost, and hoping for somethin