Hello, friends!
Yes, it's been a while - too long - almost two years! Two very emotional, difficult, yet love-filled years.
For those who have followed us since our wedding in 2005, you were aware of Mom's deteriorating health, as well as the battle my sister Mary Lou was undergoing with her Cancer. Sadly, Mary Lou lost her courageous fight on May 4th, 2009, blessed by the presence of her children by her side.
Lynne's Mom graced us with another year and a half of her smiles and stories, a few more crafts and 'presiding' at more family gatherings, before the Lord called her this past February 7th, 2010 - also surrounded by family --3 daughters, myself, and one of her granddaughters.
We took a break from this blog for a while for a couple reasons. One being the advent of 'social media', ie:Facebook, and the ease and quickness of contacting family during some of the crises that Mom was dealing with.
Then, there was that old-fashioned tool called a 'telephone'. Remember them? Well, ours got quite a workout. We're not yet 'up to snuff' when it comes to all these cell phones and Blackberries and Iphones or Ipads. Texting? Let's just say we're still living in the last century when it comes to digital communication. We're more along the lines of the Idunno. So yes, we used the real, old fashioned telephone quite a bit.
And finally, we just didn't have the time, the energy, or at times, the motivation to 'blog'. For a while, we were just totally spent.
Helping Mom consumed a lot of our time since our last entry, and we were blessed along the way to have the most Wonderful hospice team to assist Mom, and us.
Lynne's sister, Ruth, continued to visit Mom twice weekly almost every week, giving us a little time to - well - just breathe a little. While her weekly trips down here gave her 'alone time' with Mom, she'll really never know how much we appreciated the break they gave us. Sometimes, our 'dates' were quick grocery shopping trips - together! Sometimes, it was just a few hours out in the gardens together.
Lynne's sister Lee, and her husband moved down in the fall of 2009, and were also here - just a block away, whenever we needed them to help out on short notice. Again, words are insufficient in expressing how much their help with Mom helped us.
In the end, Mom's last weeks and months were filled with visits from her family, most who now live close by, and her Sunday School friends from Church, and the wonderful hospice team. She went to be with Jesus on February 7th, 2010.
So, here we are ---October, 2010.
Life is much different now. We're slowly adjusting to 'just us', after having Mom with us for the first 4½ of our married life.
As Mom's condition changed, so did our gardening priorities. For the last 2 years, our focus was giving Mom the best view from her bed of the back yard gardens. Needless to say, there was a lot of the yard that got overrun due to time and neglect. That wasn't important then, and while we're fighting now to reclaim those overgrown and well weed-covered beds, we wouldn't have done it any other way.
Over the next several entries, we'll do our best to connect the missing pieces of the recent past to the present. Those who have followed us always loved our photos and stories, and we'll try to catch up on those as we move Forward.
Of course, I type this with the disclaimer that Blogger really hasn't liked either Lynne or myself ;)
We've always had posting/password problems since day 1, so we may still have some problems getting reconnected to all our friends who followed us regularly, and attempt to connect with our newer friends that this wonderful thing called the Internet has brought us over the past 2 years.
For those who have patiently waited for an update, we hope you understand our absence. Especially our anonymous friends, who always have had kind words to say to us.
For those new to our blog, we welcome you, and hope you'll visit our archives, and spend some time catching up. We've got a lot of catching up to do ourselves, and maybe, just maybe, someday down the road, the past and present will finally reconnect.
Mom, and Mary Lou - we miss you, love you, and hope you don't mind if we continue to remember you, as we stumble along, while Living, Loving, Laughing --- here at Heartland Gardens.
Rest in Peace, Mom and Mary Lou.
Love,
Tom and Lynne
