Never

a fine group of friends

I know that one should never say never, especially in a marriage. Never say....You never take out the trash... You never clean up the house...you never have dinner ready on time...You never listen to me... You never put the children to bed... You never ask my opinion. The list could be endless, but you get the picture. And you should never, ever give your spouse a reason to say those words!! This is not a marriage counseling post.

the beautiful center piece on the table

 Its this... Lately I have been grasping the meaning of the word never, and the picture is not attractive. I will never again hear him walk into the house, I will never again share coffee with him, I will never again listen to his advice, I will never again find him in a crowd of people, never again will he compliment on a new dress, never will he direct his sons, never will he blow the fork lift horn at me when I'm working in the yard and he is on the barn lot. NEVER, NEVER, NEVER.
 Sometimes I'm discouraged with me. I just want the old me back. I just really want to be ME. The me that I used to know, The me that used to sing and work, the me that loved life and working and had lots of energy. It seems that ME died. I was struggling with that a lot. But the more I read widow books and talked to others that have walked this road, the more I am beginning to realize that IT IS NORMAL, and I still don't like it. And so my mind did some more thinking. For 24 years he was my life, we did almost everything together, at least major stuff. I was young when I got married so I was never independent. I went from living with my parents and depending on them straight to my young husband. I didn't even have a drivers license before I was married! OK, It wasn't because I was to young to have a license, I wasn't that young when I got married. It was because I was Amish and when I drove anywhere I had to say git-up and whoa. So he even helped me get a license! For the first 6 years I packed his lunch and he went off to work, then the business he worked for moved within 5 minutes from our house and he came home for lunch every day. It was great having him come home at noon and the boys loved it. One day my little boys, they were probably 4and 5, decided they did not want him to go back to work after lunch so they conspired with me and we pulled the keys from his truck and hid them. It was all lots of fun as he was chasing the boys around the house trying to locate the keys. Of course after awhile he really did need to go to work so I let him find the keys. That was not funny! Somehow in their little minds they must have tho't that they really were going to keep him home and the disappointment was huge. He went to work and I got to help some angry little boys get happy again. After we moved to VA in 2001 he worked at home so we ate every meal together. In fact with him here all the time I could go to the shop and talk to him whenever I needed to. He could come in and fix whatever was leaking or help me move furniture at any time. I know I was spoiled! In 2003 when he got cancer and had a major stroke we did many things together, anything from dr. checkups and there were many, to excersices to stimulate brain cell growth, and speech therapy. We would always eat at Olive gardens after a cancer checkup and just use that as our own little time together. Since 2013 we spent even more time together then normal, and I was his primary caretaker for these last 2 years of sickness. Is it any wonder that my life is so tore up! The sadness I feel in everything I do is a result of major change. I can accomplish projects that we had planned on doing for years but completion is only half as fun since I can't share it with him. Pontooning was fun 2 weeks ago but the constant tho't of missing him was so real!I can't even go shopping without the stark reality that I will never buy him a thing again and I will never get his smile of approval on a piece of new clothing for me. Never again will he encourage me to try something new. Life will never be the same again and in this case never really means NEVER. Yes I expect I will get a new normal, I expect I will enjoy life again and I even expect that the songs will return but my loss will never go away and I will never get over it...at least that's what the books say. And I still am trying to learn to be OK with that. And life still goes on and laundry still needs to be washed and groceries need to be bought and windows still need to be cleaned and sons still need to be prayed for and listened too.

Olive Gardens yummy birthday offering

 Somehow I thought that by 5 month it would be much better, that I would function without so much sadness, that songs would not trigger so many tears but... I was wrong. It hurts when my son says with tears that I just want to talk with Dad. He just needs his dad to listen to him and fix his struggles. Maybe not even fix them but simply to listen. Thank You God that you are here for the fatherless. Last week was also the day I made history in my parents home.In fact my daddy had a very unique way of telling someone that a new baby arrived. I was born during the night, at home, and in a hurry, I beat the dr. The next morning a feed salesman came to the farm and Dad in all seriousness told him that a little girl came to the house last night and she had no clothes on. The salesman was shocked and said," What are you going to do with her?" My dad replied," I think we will just keep her." He thought that was such a good joke and always laughed when he said that story.
 Many people blessed me on Thursday and I have concluded again that I am surrounded by some awesome people. Text messages, emails and phone calls, flowers, bread, cookies, cakes, a frappe and other gifts showed up at my door. Lunch was brought in for me and my guys and the children took me out to Ruby Tuesday for supper. On Tuesday several friends were together for brunch and they gifted me then too. Two friends took me to Starbucks on fri. morning. Carlin said that he wishes he would have as many friends as I do! Recently a big box came by UPS and had lots of Norwecks products in it. A niece is a distributor and she took orders for me. Wow! I was shocked! Thanks to my sisters, my mom and my nieces and other friends. Now I have to clean! Thank you to everyone...you have blessed and inspired me again by so much kindness.
 On Friday evening the Zook ladies from this area and TN met in Bristol for supper at Olive Gardens to celebrate my birthday. I missed the 3 sister-in-laws that couldn't be there but Africa, OK, and NC was just a lil to far for an evening outing. It was a fun evening and we think we should do it more often, after all, there are a bunch of us and we would have plenty of birthdays that we could celebrate.
And the daddies could have extra bonding time with the young-uns.I think that is such a good plan.

At Olive Gardens

Jeremy ..3 more days with the cast

 Jeremy thinks the past 3 weeks have been the slowest ever! He has high hopes of getting rid of his cast on Wed. He does not function well doing nothing so I try to dream up stuff he can do with one arm but its not enough to keep him busy all the time.
 NEVER GIVE UP AND NEVER GIVE IN, GOD IS WITH US AND WE WILL OVERCOME