And here we are ... again

Yesterday, in the sleepy little town where I was raised the unthinkable happened.  Two beautiful, perfect, innocent little boys ages 2 years and 6 months were picked up from daycare by their Grandmother.  She was to bring them home and celebrate the oldest boy's second birthday with family.  She never arrived. Armed with a gun and suicidal, she apparently shot the 2 boys and then herself.  Her vehicle was located at around 9:30 pm and all three were declared dead.  DEAD.  Facebook walls had been abuzz all night ... pictures of the boys and their grandmother.  I posted both to my wall with the hope that by some small miracle, the children would be found, alive and unharmed.  I waited for the 11 pm news and was horrified when the Channel 3 reporter said the boys and their grandmother were dead. 

I think most people probably reacted much the way I did "OH MY GOD" ... I looked at Paul and said it again.  He looked back at me with a blank expression knowing he had no explanation to offer.  My eyes were filled with tears, there was a tightness in my chest. I paced around my dining room.  

I think many of my local Facebook friends also watched the news because then the updates started on the walls again ....

"Why?" "Why did she have to take them too?"

"No, no, no - all 3 are gone?"

"Prayers for the family, hug your kids a little tighter tonight"

"I'm having a hard time believing in God tonight"

It is during times like these that I turn to a quote from a book I read some time ago. It is just from a work of fiction - not a text book, religious work, or spiritual self help book.  Just a short little novel.  The narrator says "It is clear, too, that she believes in God and that her God does not intercede in tragedies. But he weeps for them"

I find that I return to those few simple lines when things shake me to the core, when I start to question my faith, when I want to blame God.  In the Fall, a shocking loss of a close friend, in December, the tragic shootings in Newtown, and now the violent death of these two, young boys .... 

Seems I've had to remind myself a lot lately that God, well my God anyway, does not intercede in tragedies, but weeps for them, weeps with me.

These families have a long, hard road ahead of them.  I pray that the world around them, both far and near, shows mercy, kindness and love and refrains from passing judgement and criticism.  That they will find some way to mourn, grieve, heal.  I pray. 

In Jesus' name, I PRAY. 

Stairway to Heaven

We are in our new house - legally - with CO in hand and the list of things that still need to be completed shrinking.  We are slowly ... and I mean slowly working on sorting through and getting rid of the old stuff in Rev 1.  Paul and I saved up for a new bedroom set for our huge (to us) Master Bedroom.  We bought several other pieces and they were all delivered and assembled in the new house ... now we're thinking. 

If you never saw our old bedroom furniture .. we had the world's TALLEST bed.  It was a king and it was just really high off the floor. Years ago, Paul and I went off on vacation and my brother stayed here with Storm.  We returned and David says "your bed is too high, the dog cannot even jump up onto it.  I had to lift him in every night"  Yes, Storm slept with us every night... and if there was a house sitter - he slept with them too.  Let me add that in this situation the dog is very much like a kid seeing how much he could get away with because he had no problem jumping into that bed every night when we were home.  Suffice it to say, someone got played.  David announces that he is going to make the dog steps to get in and out of the bed.  He is very handy and always working on projects here and there ... so I figured this would be a good thing.  

A few weeks later David arrives with the stairs.  We never talked about specifics and, clearly, our visions were a little bit different.  I had envisioned something sleek and compact, maybe ramp like.  David, well, he envisioned STAIRS .....

Don't get me wrong .. they were very well constructed and even covered with old carpet but they were um ... large. Remember we had the worlds tallest king size bed and a room that was not spacious.  All that said - we made it work.  They morphed into a nightstand/dog steps and came in handy during my pregnancies when let's just say climbing into that bed without them could have been really, REALLY unattractive. 

We just about have the upstairs in the old house emptied - things have been sorted to the dumpster, new basement, church tag sale pile, etc.  The stairs were one of the last things to go from our old room.  Don't get me wrong, our new house ROCKS, but letting go of some things has been unexpectedly difficult.  When I saw the stairs in front of the garage door the other day, I was surprised by a little wave of sadness.  "Storm's stairs" are headed for the dumpster.

Bradley is a "first floor" dog in the new house.  He isn't allowed on the couches or the beds.  He has a crate, a comfy dog bed and a play pen. He is in no way, shape or form suffering ... trust me.  Storm had the run of that old house and I don't regret one moment, but we agreed in the new house when there was a new dog, there were rules.  Storm was a gigantic part of our lives.  When he had to let him go, we brought him home, to Romanskiville, and buried him in a spot in the yard that we knew no matter what we built or landscaped would never be disturbed.  In the Spring (when the damn snow melts) we're marking that spot with a stone and then planting a little garden ... with flowers like the ones in my front garden that he used to walk right through the middle of. 

 It was that or make his grave with the stairs .... "You might be a Redneck....."

Here's what the stairs looked like on Saturday afternoon.