Looking for sweetness

     Just to warn you, this post has a sad story sandwiched in it, but in the end I will show you some sweetness that I have been able to see through it all.

     This isn’t going to be a depressing or a “woe is me” blog.  I really want it to be a sweet place for people to visit.  Somewhere you can be encouraged.  Encouraged to enjoy your blessings.  Encouraged to take just one more step, even if you don’t know where you’ll find the strength.   Encouraged to look for the sweet things, even when there doesn’t seem to be any.  With God’s help you can do it!  Lean on His everlasting arms and He’ll carry you through whatever you’re going through.  He’s done it for me over and over again.

     I named my blog in memory of my sweet Momma, Mary Sue, known to her family and friends, as she was growing up, as “Wumpy.”  She got that sweet name from her Daddy/my Granddaddy.  Shortly after she was born (July 8, 1943) he started to call her his little “Sugar Lump,” which was shortened to “Sugar Wump” in baby language ;O) And eventually shortened to “Wump” or “Wumpy” (said with a southern accent, of course…she was born in Virginia!).

     About a year and a half after my dad passed away suddenly from a heart attack in 2007, my mom met and married a wonderful man named Carl.

{She totally freaked me out when she told me that they met online.

What??!  

He could be a really dangerous person or something!

Not to mention, she would have killed me if I had ever done anything like that!}

     Well, Momma and Carl’s story was truly a “Happily Ever After” story.  They loved each other deeply and just loved spending every single minute together.  They would go to the mall together, and after Carl got his cup of coffee, he’d go sit down and read his book, while my mom shopped – they were there together and they were both happy!

     Momma and Carl both loved to travel and they put many, many miles on their van, as they traveled across the beautiful US…together.

     Their last trip to visit us was July of 2013, when we got to celebrate my mom’s big 7-0 birthday.  Now before you get an “old lady” picture of my mom in your mind let me show you a picture that was taken of her and Carl just a few months before her 70th…

Drum roll please…..

 

This is my Momma and Carl February 2013.  (picture taken by my photographer daughter C :o)

Aren’t they beautiful together?!

They were both so vibrant and happy, and enjoying their life to the fullest in Florida.

     We enjoyed two whole weeks with them when they drove up to visit us here in Canada, where we’ve lived since December 1993.  She requested a carrot cake for her birthday cake…which I made, using the very best recipe. Ever. The recipe is hers from years and years ago.  Oh so yummy!!  :o)  Did I mention with lots and lots of cream cheese icing?  Isn’t that the only way to eat carrot cake?!

     My mom would rather have a sentimental gift than something big and expensive any day. So one of the gifts I gave her that year was another pillow I made with some quilt scraps that were from her mom, that I got after she passed away.  She loved it.

{Please excuse this newbie bloggers poor pictures with the date stamped on it…}

     With my mom and Carl traveling so much and our limited minutes on our cell phones, we didn’t really get to talk a lot, but we made up for it in texting each other.  We kept our texting fingers hot!

    She was my biggest cheering section and I know she would have been my biggest fan on my blog.  She was cheering me on and praying for me and my family as one of our daughters was being tested for skin cancer, and then for Joe (my husband and very best friend), who barely missed a fatal heart attack – as the dr. put it – and had to have a stint put in.   Earlier in our marriage, she was there when our 4 year old son had a 12 hour brain surgery.  She traveled that dark road with us, too, getting others to pray.

     So on December 5, 2013, I was hardly expecting the news my brother B was calling with.  When I saw his number on my caller ID I went to get my earbuds, thinking we’d be on the phone for a while catching up.  As I was shaking out my earbuds, trying to untangle them, I asked him how he was doing.  He said he’d had better days.  Thinking one of his grandkids might be sick, I asked him what was wrong.

     Never in a million years was I expecting his next words.  Never in a million years will I forget that phone call.  It is burned in my brain forever…

He told me that my Momma and Carl were both struck and killed while they were walking across a street there in Florida.

     A year later and it still doesn’t seem real.  I still can’t believe it.  I wonder if the shock of it will ever really go away.  Its unbelievable that its been a year.  It seems like yesterday.

     The lonely flight to Florida…a long drive to Virginia.  A double funeral.

     You ask, so where is the sweetness I mentioned earlier?  In some little things the Lord has done for me along the way.   Here are just a few…

     The Canadian border guard asking the reason for my trip; then with tears in his eyes, he hands me a tissue,                                                                                 touches my arm and asks if I’m going to be ok.

     A friend paying for my plane ticket and then my husbands so he can come down for the funerals.

 Knowing my mom and Carl didn’t have to suffer.

     Knowing they are both with the Lord…that they went together…we are all positive that they were holding hands as they crossed that street.

That is sweet to me.

     The day our son passed away, a well-meaning lady said to me that it was ok to be mad at God.  I looked at her in astonishment and told her, without even having to think about it, that I couldn’t be mad at God!  He’d been with us and so good to us though Benjamin’s illness.  I often tell folks that as hard as it was going through that time with Ben, the Lord made it as soft as He could.  I believe that with all of my heart.  But that’s another story for another time.

     I can’t say I understand God’s ways and though, sometimes its pretty hard, I can’t imagine living life without Him as my Heavenly Father and Saviour.

     Momma and Carl were killed on a Thursday.  Sunday morning before church Joe asked me if there was a special hymn or song I wanted him to pick for one of the congregationals.  “Because He Lives” instantly came to my mind…the chorus goes like this:

(song by Bill Gaither)

     Does He hold your future?   He holds mine…and I’m so thankful He holds my hand, too.