Today has special significance to me because it would have been my Daddy’s 76th birthday.
The good Lord called him home in 2009, and we still miss him every single day. I have a husband I wish he’d been able to meet and get to know. We have two precious grandbabies Dad never got to hold.
But, I know one day I will see him again, and we are blessed. God has provided a step-father for us, and though he and Dad are very, very different, he shows me love in many ways and I’m grateful. Most of all, he takes good care of my mother, and she is going places and seeing things she might not have seen otherwise.
God always has a plan.
I remember how difficult it was to buy gifts for Daddy. And just about the time you thought you’d hit on something brilliant for him for Christmas, bam! — You turned around and it was his birthday already, and you’re back in the same pickle. Poor Dad .... I know he got many an “afterthought” birthday gift.
Once school resumes, I supposed things will return to “normal” — whatever that is. I pray your holidays were everything you’d hoped for and then some.
Mr. Kirk and I both had 10-day vacations from our jobs over Christmas and New Years. We had a wonderful weekend pre-Christmas, did the Midlothian family thing on Dec. 23, then had a precious Christmas Eve with my family.
In fact, sitting in three or four pews at First Baptist Church for the candlelight Christmas Eve service, I had one of those “nearly perfect” moments. You know those times when you look around, feel warm all over and like God’s blessings are just overflowing on you? Where it “just doesn’t get any better than this?”
On one row of pews were my beautiful daughters, their mates, and their precious children (our grandchildren!), then on our row were my William, Jordan (his daughter), my Mother and Haskell, then my sister, her husband and two children on the next row. With the Christmas carols playing, the twinkly lights, and the glow of the candles — that was my “perfect” Christmas memory. I even cherish the spot on my pants where I spilled hot wax (horsing around with my candle to make my grandkids laugh) because it is a reminder of that perfect memory.
For the next day, on Christmas Day, when I was finally going to get to go serve meals at First Baptist with my handsome groom, his brother and family and my parents — I woke up with raging fever and what I can only surmise was the flu. I wasn’t even that sick when I had swine flu right after Daddy passed away in 2009 — and it lingered for days.
Needless to say, our vacation sure wasn’t what we’d envisioned (Will got sick right after me), but we were very grateful to be able to stay home and not keep forcing ourselves to work, continuing the spread of germs. From what I read on Facebook, the number of viruses, illnesses, etc. going around and the number of people affected was alarming.
However, by New Year’s we were sufficiently on the mend to be able to keep the grandbabies, and a package showed up at precisely the right time filled with pink packing popcorns, which we “snowed” all over the living room and those babies and Jordan had a high old time.
2013 is going to be a great year!
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Deanna Kirk is a Daily Sun staff writer and editor of Explore magazine. Her column appears on Saturdays. She may be reached by email at dkirk@corsicanadailysun.com. Want to “Soundoff” about this column? Email: soundoff@corsicanadailysun.com
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Deanna Kirk
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Precious memories
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