Gravel Road Musings

Five years ago today, we made our vows to each other; to love and to cherish in health and sickness, good times and bad times.  Or however, our vows went.  I suppose if I was truly intent on keeping them, I ought to know what they said. But wait, if my only intention in reading them was to know what they said so I could make sure I followed them, wouldn't that somewhat defeat the notion of love?  Love shouldn't keep a list and follow it, now should it?  Shouldn't love be wanting to do all of the above mentioned things and many others beside? Now, I am glad that our vows didn't say anything about cleaning the house and cooking the meals with all love and joy and happiness, because then, sadly enough, I would have broken the vows, possible before the first month or two was out. But here we are at 5 years and right now, I am enjoying the cooking part.  I even got up and made breakfast burritos this morning, in honor of it being our anniversary.  That's t...

It seems whenever I post about Nicole, my computer at home freezes and won't let me back on my blog, so let's try a different post and see what happens.  I can't see that there is any connection there, but... The big change right now:  the faithful secretary has officially quit.  Kerra, it's been a good 5 years together and I will miss you in the next 2.5 months that I am here.  Nobody else gets the jokes and knows the stories of our dear patients and their little quirks.  It's been good, but I wish you the best in your newest and most long-lasting venture.  God's richest blessings you and Stan.  Your little girl will always have a special place in my heart.

It's been 5 weeks since we laid Nicole Brooke to "rest" they call it.  What kind of terminology is that?  It's one of those euphemisms we use to make it sound nicer than it really is.  Because let's face it:  putting a body in a casket, closing and sealing the lid and putting it in a cold dark hole in the ground and covering it with dirt is not nice.  It doesn't feel restful at all--it feels downright cruel. Even now, the memories come flooding back over me.  The tears and awful moment of putting Nicole in her coffin, kissing her sweet face one last time and then having to close that lid.  There was no beauty in that.  The beauty came in knowing that while we were putting her body to "rest", the real and alive part of Nicole was in heaven, wrapped in Jesus' embrace and having a good time. Watching them put her body in the ground was not fun--in fact, I wasn't even sure I could watch that first shovelful of dirt being put on her grave.  It...

The Dancing Master by Julie Klassen This book was given to me by the Bethany House Publishers for the express purpose of writing a review. This was a fun book to read for me right now.  This was set in a small town in England where dancing had been outlawed about 20 years ago. Lady Amelia had adopted her niece as her own daughter and while she loved her dearly, she had a hard time expressing that love, which made Julia, her daughter, feel very unloved and restricted in her freedom. Lady Amelia's husband had not been in favor of taking in Julia and he showed no interest in her during her growing up years. I think this in turn caused Julia to seek any and all male attention. When I write reviews, I like to think more about the themes expressed in the book rather than giving a small synopsis of what happened.  You can go read the book description on Amazon if you want that. Forgiveness was a big theme to me in this book, though it really wasn't talked about much until t...