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Anyone who has ever lost anyone close to them will understand this feeling.  The days after that someone passes away are tough.  You pick up the phone and go to call them and remember they aren't there, you think you see them in traffic or in a crowd of people and then you remember they are gone.  Then as time passes you don't do that near as much.  Now I am in no way saying that I don't miss my daddy anymore. I miss him still to this day but the pain of that hurt has over time become so much easier to deal with.

The thing is it is the unexpected things in life that creep up and get you and take you back to the day they left earth.  This happened to me recently.  I was at home with Mattie just me and her and basketball was on ( if you can call some of the NCAA tournament basketball but that is another blog entry).  Mattie has enjoyed basketball since birth.  She watches basketball  like she watches Elmo, she never looks away. I thought wouldn't Daddy think that was neat, a granddaughter who loves basketball. I became so sad at the fact that daddy wasn't here to see her. Well if you know anything about missing someone you know that it just kind of snowballs from there into what my family calls ugly crying. You think of all the big events they have missed from funerals to weddings to births. That is what I mean by the small things that get us.  I was prepared to miss my daddy when I got married.  I was prepared to miss him when I had Mattie. I have been prepared at other events to miss him. It is the little things like watching your child watch a basketball game, hearing a song on the radio, or maybe a certain scripture that take you back to that place of sadness that they are not there.

Basketball was always mine and my dads thing.  I wasn't very good at it but I understood the game. My dad along with Coach Windle coached me from 7th-12th grade and I couldn't think of two better men to learn from.  They took a totally different approach but they were wonderful with us girls and they loved us dearly and we always knew that. I sat there and watched Mattie just staring at the TV and I couldn't help but think Daddy was smiling down thinking of how much fun we had in that gym at Morgan Academy so long ago. I don't want to get into the spirituality of all of that and if it is even possible but sometimes just thinking about that gives me comfort in the hardest times.  The morning after all of this happened  Kyle didn't ride to work with me, so that means I had total control of the radio.  Well I was listening to Andrew Peterson again, he really is that good, and here is the song that was playing.


More by Andrew Peterson

This is not the end here at this grave
This is just a hole that someone made
Every hole was made to fill
And every heart can feel it still--
Our nature hates a vacuum

This is not the hardest part of all
This is just the seed that has to fall
All our lives we till the ground
Until we lay our sorrows down
And watch the sky for rain

There is more
More than all this pain
More than all the falling down
And the getting up again
There is more
More than we can see
From our tiny vantage point
In this vast eternity
There is more

A thing resounds when it rings true
Ringing all the bells inside of you
Like a golden sky on a summer eve
Your heart is tugging at your sleeve
And you cannot say why
There must be more

There is more
More than we can stand
Standing in the glory
Of a love that never ends
There is more
More than we can guess
More and more, forever more
And not a second less

There is more than what the naked eye can see
Clothing all our days with mystery
Watching over everything
Wilder than our wildest dreams
Could ever dream to be

You know there is so much more than that pain.  There are so many good things that have come from my dads death.  I would rather not get into it for everyone to read but I just encourage you to think about all the good that can come from something tragic. I do know that there are days that are so hard you don't think you can go on, just ask a girl who cried like a crazy woman over the little girl below watching a basketball game.



Mattie waiting to take her picture for the directory at church

It didn't take long to go to this

When it was her turn to have her picture this is the face she made

I could never and why do you?

So many people have told me since I married Kyle that I could never live as far out as you live or why do you live all the way out in the country.  Well there are some definite pros and cons. Some of the pros are



This is one of my side yards

                                             

This is my other side yard



This is my front yard

                                     
                                                               

 These are the only things that watch you when you decide to walk/run after a long time of not walk/running.



We can grow all of our own vegetables

                                                    



   and we have a yard to go outside to anytime the weather permits



                  

I guess I can only think of one con off the top of my head and that is it takes a little while to get to town and the can be tough especially when gas is well over $3.00 a gallon.  I don't really have any cute photos to show the cons except for this:



  Mattie can drive wherever she wants in a matter of minutes, Kyle and I on the other hand can not.



I realize for some the wide open spaces would drive them crazy but I on the other hand love it.  I hope you all have a blessed Monday and I need to blog about something I have had on my mind lately maybe later today or tomorrow.  Until then.....