Hello, my friends. It does my heart and soul good to be able to take a few minutes and share with you.
My past week has been a blur. My uncle died one week ago today and we laid him to rest on Wednesday. Over this span of time, I’ve found myself on many occasions just staring into space. Not really looking at anything—just feeling and trying to wrap my mind around the suddenness of his passing. On Friday, he told us he was feeling good. And he was looking good. He was alert, oriented and responded to questions. And then two days later, he was gone. It seems surreal.
My baby sister (1 year younger than me J) made a comment over and over again through the past week’s events, “If you don’t have family, you don’t have anything”. At first, in my heart, I didn’t really agree with that. I know many people who don’t really have the support system of a family. They have a family—they just aren’t close and don’t spend time together and don’t rely on one another as they go about their daily life.
But as the week unfolded, I began to understand what my sister meant by her comment. She meant that you don’t have anything as important as family. And that is so true. Friends come and go. Jobs come and go. Relationships come and go. Success comes and goes. Material things come and go. But, family, well that’s another story. What do people do without family?
You’ve heard the saying, “you can’t pick your family”, right? And you can’t. You are born into a family and you can’t change those already there. And I’ll admit, there have been times when I wanted to. You know—go to a store that allows you to swap out a family member here and there. ☺ And if you’re honest with yourself, you’ve thought about it too. Or, if you haven’t thought about it, just wait for it. It’ll happen.
I’m not saying my entire life with my family has been a bed of roses. It hasn’t. There have been very hard times among my family. But, I can say that I don’t know what I would do without them.
My uncle was the only uncle I have ever known. My Daddy had 11 siblings, but my parents divorced when I was young and I never knew my aunts and uncles on my Daddy’s side. Uncle Wendell was my Mother’s only sibling and us girls’ only uncle. I know he is in Heaven with my grandparents. I know I will see him again.
I think the hardest part about his passing is watching my mother go through mourning him. Not that I’m not mourning, but it has been so hard on her. She has said over and over again, “I hope he knows we loved him”. And, of course, he did. Especially Mother…he always knew Mother loved him. She showed him every single day.
Make sure you love your family with all your heart. We don’t get to go buy a different family or exchange them. All too soon, they leave us and begin another leg of their journey. Just love them and make sure they know that you love them.
And forgive. Little hurts and big hurts. If it takes your whole lifetime, forgive. Work to forgive. Forgiveness is a process and it requires strength. It isn’t easy. I speak from experience. I’ve had to work to forgive some things in my family. Things that happened to me as a child and things that have happened to me as an adult. It has taken me years to get to a place that my heart doesn’t hurt when I think of those things. I have begun the process of forgiveness. Forgiveness is one of the hardest things in the world you can do, but it is so freeing and so empowering.
In the blink of an eye,
everything can change.
So forgive often and
love with all your heart.
You may never have that chance again.
~Unknown
Have a Blessed Week!
Blessings to you!
Charity & The Horse Mafia
Thank you and bless you for your blog Charity! So sorry for your loss! Sometimes it takes loosing someone to realize just how important they were. As humans we tend to take things for granted and sometimes it takes death or harm to make us aware of what is important!
Thank you and bless you for your blog Charity! So sorry for your loss! Sometimes it takes loosing someone to realize just how important they were. As humans we tend to take things for granted and sometimes it takes death or harm to make us aware of what is important!