It's the first 9th of the year.....

Today is the first 9th of the new year. Does everyone who loses someone have harder days on those "meaningful" dates? Seems that the 9th and Wednesdays are more difficult somehow as my mind is focused more on the date and the details of the event that occured.

On these days I like to stay busy.....today we have been doing some cleaning, I dusted the living room and the front porch. Directed my son on where to hang a large shelf that hubby had built about 10 years ago for his parents that they did not want anymore. Actually there are two shelves that match and he made them BIG - one is 8 1/2 feet long and the other 10. The smaller one will go into my room and the larger into his room.

My current job is going through the box of hubby's things that I had cleaned out of his office the Monday after his funeral. I never plan to do these things, it seems the Lord places them on my heart when it is time for me to do them, His time. I need to remember to trust Him in all things because when I do, life is much more joyful and smoother. The box has been sitting on our front porch/entry way for several weeks.

I have found drawings (he was in construction), photo-copied Calvin and Hobbes strips, business cards, change, receipts for bills, receipts from Amazon for his church history books such as; Polycarp, Apostolic Fathers Volume II, St Ignatius, Hermas, St. Augustine. Passwords to his various emails and bill paying accounts. So many handwritten notes that mean nothing to me but they are in his hand and so they mean everything. Pictures he had of the kids taped to the monitor of his computer. Papers written by St. Ambrose and Josephus that he had printed off.

In the above picture is a framed pencil drawing our youngest did of our pony when he was 5, a Far Side cartoon, our grand daughter's pictures, one of our kids, a drawing from our then 8 year old son, and his tin of mathematical tools, a tin of mink oil and some drawing stencils.

More tears.....I came across the last note I had written him just two days before he died. He had only been working close to home for about 3 years and I was in a habit of stopping in with one or all of the kids one or two times a week. If he were not in his office I would leave him a note or write "graffiti" on the plywood part of his desk. Here is my note:
GOOD MORNING!

Hope you are working hard - here's a random statement for you, I like this pen I am writing with. If you can't find it you know where it went.

Dropped off ***** at the HS and *** is with me, just thought we'd stop by and say hello.

Hope your day is a better one today. We will be cleaning again, one room at a time.

Love you,

***

PS there are way too MANY Dr Peppers in your trash young man :)

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I am now finished with that box and the Lord gave me strength enough to begin going through some of his business things that he had packed away in 2006. I do feel drained, but in a good way. Lots of memories, trips through those years. Lots of notes to and from his secretaries who included a good friend of mine and then our oldest daughter. I did a lot of laughing also at his words....he wrote just like he talked! It took a lot of patience on your part She while working with him! I almost called you at one point....you'd recognize all these names of customers I was reading today.......♥ I did save some things, but put most of it in a burn pile that is smoldering now, yet I do still have a pair of his safety glasses that I'm sure were hardly worn on top of my head!

God is faithful and even though I have that tightness in my chest which I recognize as grief, I feel lightened at the same time to have accomplished this dreaded task. Again, I am fine, I was not alone and it was healing at the same time it made me ache.