He is my Favorite...

Showing posts with label memories. Show all posts

So just to let anyone know....our trip to Missouri went well! We arrived VERY early this morning and have really enjoyed visiting with family. I am seriously in love with these people. :)
But I feel like I am behind on visiting my blogging buddies so don't feel like I am ignoring you! We are just busy with family and the upcoming Memorial Service for Grandpa on Saturday.
Kind of strange. I didn't know Grandpa Cantrell very well. We were able to spend some good time with him last Christmas and that was good-he loved getting to know his great-grandkids!
I had only ever spent time with him one time before that, when Chase graduated from college. So really, I know very very little about him which is too bad. It is strange to be in his house without him. Even though I have never been here before so I shouldn't know how it feels to be without him, I can feel it. I can hear his voice. He had the greatest voice...it had this amazing, deep quality to it. He tended to remind me of James Garner, I don't know if anyone else would see that or not...
But he had such a presence-just one of those people I guess. And even at Christmas when you could tell he was having a hard time with the cancer and all the treatments that entails-he was enjoying life. Loving his family, cracking jokes and being an integral part of the family! We miss you Grandpa. :) It brings so much peace and comfort to know we will see you again and there we will REALLY be living! :)
Alot of being here has also reminded me of losing my dad and the random things that went into preparing for his memorial service and dealing with his death: yard work, poster making, talking to family members, etc.
Our situation was a little different-it wasn't as mournful a time as you might think. But it was still hard. And on our stop in Colorado yesterday we actually drove by the spot next to the highway where he died. Pretty strange.
With dad, it was so strange...we didn't know what to feel. I was the only one in the family who cried...and I think that was just because I hadn't lived with him for the past three years-truly.
We sat at the Memorial service feeling angry and betrayed...and relieved. How sad to be relieved at the funeral of a parent! Yet we were. We were so lost...
My great-grandpa died a year and a half ago. Grandpa Joe is what we called him. :) I had no idea how badly I would miss him when he was gone. We had known for awhile he would be going home soon. The man was 93 for pete's sake! :) He was dealing with Parkinson's and dementia. He had this great mid-west accent and called me "Gina Mae." He was SO handsome. I love the pictures of he and Grandma in the 40's. They are so adorable.
I went out to visit my Grandma after he died. We thought that it would be good for her to spend some time with the GREAT-GREAT grandkids for a few days after the funeral. It did help her and lifted her spirits, but you can't be married to someone for 70+ years (!!!!!) and just transition to him not being there anymore. She has pretty much stopped talking about him, I think because it hurts so much that he is gone. She has aged a lot in the last year.
Grandpa died about the time that Van was born and I found myself having some post-partum issues which I hadn't experienced with the other two. I even went to my OB/GYN and got a prescription for anti-depressants. I think I took one. I wasn't having suicidal thoughts or any kind of harmful anything going on, I was just really really down and couldn't figure out what my problem was. So I finally (!!!) asked God about it and He kinda reminded me that I was in fact mourning and didn't realize it. God helped me sort through my issues and I realized that Grandpa Joe was one of my safe places. He and Grandma were there and they were safe. Their house was around the corner from the Christian school I went to through highschool and we often were over there, eating them out of house and home, just hanging out or visiting. They were safe. We stayed at their house many many times and would go over there as much as possible-especially if dad was home. And Grandpa Joe was a safe man. That was definitely not the norm in my situation. I took him and Grandma for granted. But I knew how much they loved us and worried about us and prayed for us and did everything they could for us. But somehow it wasn't until he was gone that I realized what a place he had in my life.
On his 90th birthday, people wrote down memories of him and sent them to him to help him remember his life and also to document his life for the rest of us. I finally got to read it on that trip I took for Grandma. It was amazing, I had no idea! I knew he was a mechanic and a well-respected one. But I didn't realize to what extent. People shared stories of the Depression and him inviting people to come eat with them when they themselves had next to nothing on the table. He would repair cars and expect nothing in return and take no payment if a family was (and about all of them were) in financial straits. People talked about him sharing Christ with them and being the most generous man they knew. And he still took care of his family. As a family they had been through tough times...they had lost a baby and usually had very little to live on. But he loved his family and adored his wife. He did what he needed to do to take care of them. Just amazing. I hope his great great grandson takes after him in these ways. :)
I miss him. :)

I guess the point of this amazingly and unexpectedly long post is that I don't want my kids to be lost. Lost because of how my life affected them negatively while I lived here, or lost because I am not here anymore and they don't know how to live life just them and God. I want my kids to have faith. To know that they are God's and He has a plan and that even when we don't understand and it hurts that He is all we need and He can give us strength and will to function and even better-glorify Him.
It is so nice to be not-so-lost anymore! I still miss these men and will continue to, but I want to live looking forward and praying that someday when I run into them in heaven that I have great reports for them about their grandkids and families, and what miraculous things God has done in my life. :)
God gives us so much grace. :)

That time again! This time to post a memory about the first place you lived in after you got married. :) Yay!!! I love "just married" memories!This month, (on the 17th) we celebrate our 5th anniversary so it is an especially good topic!

We lived in our first house for not quite a year. How it happened was Chase and this other guy Todd were both interning at the church. There was a couple who owned a home here as a "summer home" and went to our church when they were up here. Anyway, they found out about the interning guys and let them live there for the summer since they weren't going to make it that year. As the summer went on, Chase was hired on as the youth pastor and we decided it was a great time to get married. So the couple let us rent it from them (for some amazing amount...like $300 a month if I remember right...and you have to know that in this area, it is normally cheaper to buy than rent!) so I moved my stuff in a couple weeks before we got married, lived at a friend's house until the wedding and then, TA-Daaaah!!! Our first home!!

Was a great house for the time...2 bedrooms, a spacious living room which worked well for having the teens over. The kitchen was great....TONS of cabinet space I didn't know what to do with! My favorite part was the Master bathroom....it had a whirlpool tub in it!!!! That tub was really nice since three weeks into married-hood, I got pregnant! I have to admit that most of my memories of that house are memories of me throwing up somewhere or jumping into the shower after just having thrown up! LOL For awhile, just walking through the kitchen would make me run to the bathroom...just because I knew there was food lurking behind cabinet doors...crazy! :)

It was in the living room that Chase and I were looking through a baby name book and trying to find a middle name for the little girl we had coming...we found Peaches and laughed over how funny/ridiculous that would be to name our poor daughter Chastity Peaches.....but it totally stuck and for the longest time, everyone just called her Peaches! The Grandparents all did tell us we were crazy and awful, but her name just suits her and now everyone agrees. :)

I had a lot of fun making Christmas cookies in that kitchen with some of my teen girls...they are all grown and gone now...although one is married and lives here in the area. :)

It was a vacation spot neighborhood so that winter was really quiet since I had no close neighbors...I didn't really like that. Also, I had moved here from Palm Springs, CA, and I had been told that while, yes we do get snow up here in this part of Arizona, the winter is really mild. Well, as it turned out, we had record snowfall that year and record cold weather! LOL Even pregnant I was freezing!

On the up-side, because the rent was so low, Chase was able to save up to buy a house much more quickly. We even considered buying that one, but decided we needed a yard (this house had next to no yard.) and more bedrooms since we were planning on having more kids than just the one!

So eight months pregnant we closed on our home. :)

I still drive by the old house occasionally and tell the kids about it.

And boy, do I miss that bathtub! ;)

Subscribe to: Posts ( Atom )