Dear family
and friends,
For the last
thirty years, I have written a newsy family letter to accompany my Christmas
cards, no matter what chaotic circumstances made up our personal lives at the
time. Even after I started blogging online and discovered instant contact
through social media, there's been this driving force to document the year's
events in a special letter, send them out to our many friends across the
country. It wasn't a chore at all, but a pleasure I actually looked forward to
from year to year.
But this
year, I just didn’t have the same desire to reflect and share the activities of
the Thompson household. Dean, my husband, is gone (as of February 2, 2018), and
no matter how I try to put a gleeful spin on that fact, it just won't come out
on paper in a way that adds to the holiday joy of the season.
With his
funeral now comfortingly documented on video, I have spent the rest of the
year, pouring myself into blogging for Outlook magazine, carrying out various
church responsibilities (including church clerk, communications secretary, and Sabbath
school superintendent--it's a small church), and enjoying our two granddaughters every chance I get.
It seems odd
to go on errands or to a friend's house and not feel tethered to Dean's care
anymore (returning home to check on his care, either by phone or in person).
But whenever I think of that freedom as a positive in my life, I also
experience a twinge of guilt.
I try not to
think of my new widow status as something better or worse in my life. It's just
different. There was just as much satisfaction and joy in being Dean's
caregiver all those years, as it is to care about other things and for other
people now.
Have a merry, happy New Year...you all mean the world to me!
Love and prayers,
Teresa
Here are some photographic remembrances that comfort me, and help me wait for the grand Resurrection Morning when Jesus comes again to take us all to heaven, as He promised in John 14:1-3. "Let not your heart be troubled...I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also." Come, Lord Jesus, come!
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