One week, a funeral...tears...and a sweet memory

 It is one week, since you are not a citizen of this world anymore. I think the upper world was in awe of receiving your soul. They were so happy to welcome you and to see your joyful spirit. If I am an optimist, then you were a super optimist, if that even exists. 

You always had in you, no matter what was the situation, you found the power to go on with a smile even in your biggest pain. You said you loved me and you are tired...that was our last conversation. 

I love you...too, and no day will pass by without remembering that love. That pure love of my bigger sister. The one who always had my back, and the one who loved me more than anyone else. 

We had a lovely funeral, we honored you. Initially I was expecting a very small crowd of people, those who knew you well, and some friends, but actually there were almost 80-90 people, and majority very young people. That is a clear picture of how much you were loved by others, and how much they wanted to come and celebrate your life. 

These are the same people who prayed for you, in all this period, who hoped together with me..to have you back at home. But that did not happen, because God choose to take you there with Him, and to spare you from more suffering. I am trying to be grateful for that, but I am not able...at least not just yet. 

Every evening I sit and talk to you, some people might think I am crazy, but this is my favorite moment of the evening, when I speak to you in letters and to God. I want to believe that you are receiving all those letters, and that they make you happy, and that you remember that I really love you. 

Is hard for me to speak ...about you in the past. 

I feel you are still here..in a shape or form. There is a part of me that feels numb, the part who needs to accept that you are no longer alive, and I feel that the black scarf is burring me into the ground. 

And that is not so bad, cause like this I am closer to you, closer to your heart. 

I've prayed so many times to be able to pray with tears...and I was never able. For a while now, specially from last week, I am able to do this almost every day. Thank you for that, thank you for helping me achieve more, even when you are not here!

I love you sis, and everything in this house reminds me of you! Please watch over us, and please know you were very much loved, by us and by all our friends. 

2 months....and the eternity

 Two months without 1 day, since you are not here with us, with me. And every day of these two months was about you, and about the absence that I feel not having you around.

You filled a place with joy, with laughter when you entered, and now this place is empty, and seems like life itself changed;

I will miss you always my dear sister! And I will love you always! 

Words are not easy to be found in this situation, but I know what I feel, and I know what I hope, that one day we will be together again...up there, in the presence of our Almighty Father. 

Preview...of emotions

 It is a time when I am experiencing a wider palette of emotions, than I am use too. I use to know very well the positive emotions such as joy, content, excitement etc. 

But for the past two months, and reaching a smaller pick today, I have experienced the negative emotions as sadness, grief, frustration, anger, disappointment etc. 

The difference between the two set of emotions is that the second ones force you to look deeper, into your soul to see what is going on there. And it is not always good, or easy to go down there and see what you find. 

Currently, I am spiraling down a bit on this route of sadness and despair. The news we received today puts the things into a new perspective, one that we were not really keen to every experience. And it seems like there is very little time to process, and very little willingness to process. 

Why you might ask? Cause the pain is too heavy to contain, and if it bursts, then you wonder if you can stop it...and if you are not able to stop it...then it will just confuse you more, and complicate the things. 

But not experiencing it fully, does not mean that is not there. Laughing can be done with a broken heart, saying you are ok in a business meeting can be done with a broken heart, many things can be done while you feel broken. 

So the question in my mind is...if this is how it is now, as a preview...how will it be, when I ll be there? When the actual thing will happen? 

Will I be ever able to recover? How will my life look if this happens? How will we ever fill that huge void that will remain? 

Questions that will remain without answer, at least for a while. 

Courage dear heart...

Poem - Broken in the cold

 I:

The winter is here, I feel her embrace

I use to enjoy it, the white and the snow

But now is too painful, I only hear wolves

Their howls are waiting for someone to kill 

II:

I run and I hide away from those wolves 

I try to escape, but the forest is deep

I feel branches hurt me, my body is in pain

I run and I run like the world has no end

III: 

But out of the sudden I see a bright light

The wolf's are not howling, they froze in the dark 

Your face...Am I dreaming, or I'm already dead? 

The cold covers me further, I just lay down my head

IV: 

I slowly wake up, in the warm cozy room

I take a deep breath, and I'm silent as a tomb

The house is in silence, no movement at all

I look through the window, that's covered in snow

And I miss you - more and more

 Another late night post, to echo my soul and the fact that I miss you much, and the feeling grows as days go by. When I had you here around me, I did not appreciate you as I should have had. I did not have great ideas, like I have now, ideas that could have helps us know each other better. 

I was focused only on me, and I am so sorry about that. 

I thought that my life is my life, and that yours is yours. But the things are never like this. I am usually a person that sees things in black or white, but it took me 38 years to realize that this is one of the biggest mistakes someone can do. 

Things are never black and white, there is always at least one more perspective, so things are grey, or any other color you like, but for sure not black and white. 

I think I could have done things differently, and I want , I dream and I pray for a chance to do them. 

Every day that passes I think about you, and about the moment you'll come home, and how our life will be new, adapted, difficult but for sure with a bit more love. 

It takes tragedy to learn what love is. I am living this as a tragedy, I feel the pain, even if I try very hard to numb it, I manage to numb it, but it does not mean that the pain is not there. 

My soul is full of the despair, of the possibility to not see you again. But I rarely go there. 

I know you are one of a kind, and I know God has a special plan for you and for you, here on Earth or up in Heaven. But for now, I am asking to be selfish, so I am asking Him for the plan to start here for you, with me and with our family. So fight this, push through and come home. 

As I go through your stuff, I remember things about you, I love to find fingerprints, memories of all sorts in between your things, you are so special! I know you know I am thinking these things about you. 

My hope is not gone, my faith is not decreasing, I know there is a way forward. 

I am sometimes lonely

 The reality is that I am sometime lonely as well. I feel sometimes that my marital status defines me and that no one takes me seriously as I am not married. But at the same time then I feel like, people do not actually expect to see me married anymore. So is this true?

Are they right? The thing with marriage is that it needs to happen at an early age, or otherwise people seem to think that something is wrong with you, that you are not smart enough, not beautiful enough, not rich enough etc. 

You simply did not make the cut, or there is no demand for your offer. Is a painful thing actually. 

Also, if you are divorced, I think you are actually getting more respect, because it is only demonstrating that you once made the cut, but for some reasons, not necessarily related to you it did not work. 

So what are all the never married people in their 40's supposed to do to fit in, and to be understood? 

I think the answer to this question, is they need to enjoy life, party and have occasional relationships with the opposite sex, or even longer relationships if is the case. 

But what should never married Christians in their 40's do? that is a total different story! there is no recipe for them. They are misfits in all categories. In the non Christian clubs they look like virgins or reformed loosers, that do not know what life is and how to enjoy it, so they are not really a company that is being appreciated. 

In the church environment, they are also the outcasts, cause they are the ones that never made the cut, and some people actually believe that they are not really able to fulfill the purpose of God in this world. 

So in all of this how are we supposed to manage our loneliness?

Well I think, it is not always easy, but there are ways to cope with loneliness while you are in your 40's, and I can share some of the practices that I use: 

- Prayer and meditation - (this applies even when you are in a relationship or married) - I find that praying and meditation helps you be focused on things that are eternal, rather than things that happen here in this material world, so I almost always end my time of solitude feeling grateful and content

- Practicing gratefulness - it is now for a couple of years or more that I practice gratefulness by writing reasons daily. In any form, hand written, or xl or word files, jars with notes, or notebooks with notes are really a good way to start the day and count your blessings

- New hobbies - being it reading, sports, riding a bicycle or anything else a hobby will make you feel valuable and will keep your energy levels in the right place. It will also improve the release of happiness hormones', so periods of sadness can be fewer and with minimum impact 

- Family time - spending time with the members of your family is also a very good way avoid feeling lonely. You can have one evening for games, or movies or you can simply share a meal and enjoy each other companies. Physical touch in the family environment is highly recommended, so do not fear to hug your family! 

- Friends time - developing a network of close friends and acquaintances it is also a key to cope with loneliness. So try to connect with new people with every opportunity you get, and also try to work for your existing relationships. 

- Self care - sometimes pampering yourselves gives you a pleasant feeling of simply being attractive and beautiful, and that state of mind will be giving you a lot of benefit when feeling lonely 

These are some thoughts around how to deal with loneliness, in a time where we are lonely, as the pandemic is ongoing. We need to start to love ourselves more, and appreciate the time that we spend in intimacy with God, and with our loved ones. 

A bit disappointed

 The situation is pretty much the same. We are unable to cope that well with the uncertainty anymore, we feel stress and worry, and we are frustrated because we do not get information, the ones that we would like to get. 

They told us you are a bit better at the beginning of the year, and we were very happy about that, grateful we got to see you once again, and send you small tokens so that you know we are thinking about you. 

But honestly, this is hard, and if it is hard for us, it means for you is significantly harder. I hope that you are braver than us, and that you are not giving into all the feelings that this separation can give. 

I pray every day for you, and for your physical and mental state, i hope you are strong and you remain strong. We want you home with us, and we want to take care of you, and to have you alive in the house for many more years ahead. 

Please fight this fever and all the rest, so that this can happen. I know is hard what I am asking, and you for sure tired, and you want to give up, but please don't do that. Not just yet. Please push through and fight this, and recover. You still have to live your life and see many things. 

We still have to experience things together as a family, and we do not want to do that without you. 

You are so much loved by everyone, and everyone wants you home, to be able to visit you and enjoy a coup of coffee with you. 

Never forget that you are so loved, by God and by each of us. 

I am praying and I am hoping that I ll get to have more days with you! 

You need to keep the same hope! 

Review of the New Year

 With all that is going on, it seems like I have little time to write some good things that happen in my life, cause I am usually focused on the situation at the hospital and trying to connect with the things that are happening due to that particular event. 

But I want this post to be a post about the New Year's eve, that was interesting and unexpected. Originally it was to be a lonely evening, just relaxing with family and pets, then we had some guests that offered to spend sometime with us, and it was really nice, so we kind of took the offer, but it was suppose to be a small gathering, only with close friends of the family. 

But indeed the plans you make are not always the actual things that happen, and so very last minute some few friends joined the "party", and it turned into a regular New Year's type of evening, with many people, for the size of the house, and with a poker night. 

It was really nice to see the people showing up, for the right motives I hope, and I managed to relax and to enjoy the evening, and also I had very good hands in poker, so I was really excited. 

They say that with whom you spend the New Year's eve with the same you will spend the year, so I am curious to see what will happen, and how this group will continue to meet, and to mingle. 

Not to say that I would like to be more connected with them, and to get to know them better. 

First days of 2022

 Initially i thought that when the clock will tick 00:00 in the New Years Evening, we will all realize that this was a nightmare, and that you are at home with us, and we are all ok. But it is not, and now in the first days of the New Year, you are still not here with me!

It was a strange New Year from all perspectives! Firstly because we did not have you around, and instead i was here, at home, when I was not home for the past 10 years or so. Also we had some unexpected guests, which was a surprise of the evening, and I am still curious about some things regarding these visitors. 

All in all it was really nice, not to be alone, but to be in good company. We had a good time, but we were thinking of you, and we knew that something, someone was missing from the celebration. 

It is a new year, 12 moths, 365 days of choices, cause every day is about the choice we make! 

So I do not want to have some amazing resolutions, about what I will do, and where will I go, and whom will I meet etc, I just want to take this decision today, that I will try to be more aware of the fact that everything I do I choose to do that, and not do things that I am unclear if the choice I took is not the "right" one, based of course on my judgement. 

I want to have an ALIVE 2022, one year where I can experience new things, and old things as well, one year where I can do something new, and confront my fears, one year in which I choose God, over anything else. 

I am confident, faithful, and sure on His faithfulness and love. I am His beloved, and I need to start living accordingly! 

Happy New Year!