Anniversaries

This year is going by as fast as running water draining in the sink.  The last couple of months have been a whirlwind of travel, second chances and anniversaries.  I celebrated 4 years in the ER, I started my job on March 2015.  I would have been married 33 years, I married in May of 1986.  And it has been 6 years since I had two brain aneurysms in the month of June 2013.  And my ex has been dead 4 years now, Cal passed away on July 16, 2015.  The majority of my anniversaries have been blessings and celebrations of life. But, I believe the hardest anniversary was my ex husband's death.  I realized today how much I miss Cal. Yes, it sounds strange with all the pain he caused his family, but, there was some wonderful things about Cal too.  He was truly an adventurous man.  He was very much into nature. Cal loved the ocean a great deal, he was in his element in the water.  He was a fisherman, hiker, mountain climber, he hiked up Guadalupe Peak.  He was involved with the Sierra Club and taught me the basics of camping. Cal and I were avid campers and hikers.  He was also extremely patient with me.  He was a business man and an artist.  He was a professional photographer and created some beautiful ceramic pieces; I still have some of his ceramic pieces. I also kept his cameras in hopes that I will pick up photography soon.  I miss our talks and Cal could talk. I could make Cal laugh, I loved his laughter.  He loved my warped sense of humor, one of the few people who got me.  Cal was extremely intelligent and the man could read something and remember every word of what he read.  Cal's last creative piece was building a hammer dulcimer, he never finished it and I have the dulcimer on display in my son's room.  My son, Nathaniel asked to keep it.  I could not refuse, it was a Father's day gift for Cal.

There are many days that I wish we didn't go through the insanity of my ex's addiction, but we did.  The trauma forced on our family still pains me today.  I guess the healing is never ending, but I know that the forgiveness is there. It will always be there. I prayed today that the Lord would give Cal a kiss on his cheek and a great hug from me.  I asked the Lord to tell Cal that I did love him, and that you were taking care of me and our son, Nathaniel.  I felt such peace and joy for having lived my life with Cal.  We did have some good times and I remember those times with so much joy.  Cal was an imperfect man, like the rest of us, living in an imperfect world, but never the less, loving the Lord with such desperation.  That is the one thing that I will always remember about Cal, his desperate love of God.
 

 

Rich Mullins, "Calling Out Your Name"