Paw Prints on Our Hearts🐾

It’s 5 o’clock and I catch myself waiting to hear the clicking of her toenails as she abruptly skids into the kitchen…asking for her dinner…but there is only the silence…Mr. P thought he caught a glimpse of her in when he was working in the garden…she loved being outdoors

No banal platitudes or trite quotes…words feel meaningless or at least extremely inadequate at the moment…with an inability to convey the heaviness and tumultuous of emotions…

Summerstrand, PE

Arriving in South Africa in July 2019…often I felt lost and alone in a place where everything was unfamiliar and devoid of family and old friends to hold unto…Mr. P and the lady Whiskey were my saving grace…

…when I arrived here last year…she & I started out with a common bond being two old ladies…well, I should say…just more mature…with bum left hips🤣…when Mr. P would go to work…I talked or cried…and she listened…and she understood…we became inseparable…where ever I went…she followed and laid down beside me to keep me company…it was as if she knew that it was her job…she was my friend…

Mr. P was of course her first love…her alpha…she had been with the family for almost 15 years…he trained her…took her for her favorite walks…she really adored him❤ and he loved her❣

Two worlds swirled together…creating a love that doesn’t make a lick of sense to the rational part of our brain…but somehow it touches the dreamy and devoted parts…our heart…and that is where she’ll always be…

…I wish she could have stayed just a little while longer…at least until Mr. P completed the chemo…and I think that she tried…when she ran limping down the hall her last morning to say good morning and give her love greeting…

People (and Pets🐾) come into your path for a reason, a season or a lifetime

When you know which one it is, you will know what to do with that person.

When someone is in your life for a REASON it is usually to meet a need you have expressed.

They have come to assist you through a difficulty…

To provide you with guidance and support…

To aid you physically, emotionally or spiritually…

They may seem like they are a godsend, and they are.

They are there for the reason you need them to be.

Then without any wrongdoing on your part, or at an inconvenient time, this person will say or do something to bring the relationship to an end.

Sometimes they die…

Sometimes they walk away…

Sometimes they act up and force you to take a stand….

What we must realize is that our need has been met, our desire fulfilled…

Their work is done.

The prayer you sent up has now been answered and now it is time to move on.

Some people come into your life for a SEASON.

Because your turn has come to share, grow or learn.

They bring you an experience of peace or make you laugh.

They may teach you something you have never done.

They usually give you an unbelievable amount of joy.

Believe it, it is real. But only for a season.

LIFETIME relationships teach you lifetime lessons.

Things you must build upon to have a solid emotional foundation.

Your job is to accept the lesson, love the person, and put what you have learned to use in all other relationships and areas of your life.

It is said that love is blind, but friendship is clairvoyant.

Thank you for being a part of my life…

Whether you were a reason, a season or a lifetime

–Unknown author

Most everyone and everything in our lives is often transitory…and life is brief…with your whole being…embrace the sweetness of life…and even the pain for it teaches and imbues with wisdom (if we let it)…fill each moment with gratitude, passion and purpose…forgive, forget and release each transgression quickly… relentlessly pursue joy…and never bypass a moment to express your love…

Prayers that your day will be filled with love, much laughter and the magic of life.

Day 216…Journey to Forgiveness

Saying Good-bye…

And in the end…he loved
February 16, 1931 – February 24, 2020

…May his heart now rest in peace…and may mine also

My Father’s Family

…quite a handsome young man that looks very happy in this photo…but as I look at this photo, I remember the frequent times that he voiced that he blamed his Mother for all the anger that he felt toward’s women…and I felt the brunt of that anger as the eldest…both emotionally and physically…and more that my mind has ever would allow me to remember…

“Forgiveness is giving up the hope that the past could have been any different.”
― Oprah Winfrey

The year that I was about 9 years old…with a family that he needed to feed and only a seasonal sawmill job…plus the promise of religious fulfillment…he put his wife…all four of his children, our German Shepherd Sheba… in a beat-up jalopy with a huge hole in the back floorboard…and with $50.00 left for Jeffersonville, Indiana…

…and there my life in the religious cult started…the abuse became more profuse there…he was either fervently and brutally religious or demonically violent…the pain traumatizing each cell in my body…until the only way to survive as not be inside of my body… in anguish and agonizing a-loneness…bleeding in my child’s soul…

…my mother was the perfect example of grace and beauty…inside and out…even in the place of her own pain..for once I had wanted to see if she remembered what had happened in a place that we had lived in Wisconsin…to this day, I don’t remember anything about that time…yet when I asked her about it…she replied that it was too painful to remember…

….Smiling on the Outside

After the age of 18…for many years I didn’t see or have much to do with my Father or any of my family…and life moved on…time moved on…as I had my own family and dealt with another abusive relationship with a cheating husband…

After finding out that my husband had an affair with my sister…all my Father could say was that… it was my fault…for I had not been a good enough wife…and the abuse was still agonizing…

Yet over the years…I realized that I did not want to continue to feel the pain and live a life less than…to continue moving forward and through was by forgiveness…forgiveness and healing is never a one-time process and it took many years of therapy…prayer…and every book that I could find…step by step…small slow steps…backwards…then forward again…day by day…year by year…the healing slowly and gradually covered the open wounds of my heart…soul…and mind…

…when I came back to Indiana in 2013…it was different now when I saw him…he was physically frail…and he was changed…altered somehow…he often talked about how sorry that he was that he was not a better father…and asked for forgiveness…on more than one occasion…with tears in his voice…not for any specific occurrence…but for a lifetime of hurting his children…

Another layer of forgiveness…I knew in my heart that I would probably never have the chance to see him again once I left for South Africa…I spent as much time with him as I could…loving him and letting him know that I forgave him…so he could have some peace…and I could also…

“Forgiveness is not a feeling: it is a commitment. It is a choice to show mercy, not to hold the offense against the offender. Forgiveness is the expression of love.” ~Gary Chapman

In my life I found that…most of the world contains good people that do the best that they can…with what they know and understand coloredand tightly bound by their life experiences…be patient and forgiving…for if they knew and understood…they would do things differently…

Image result for the world is hurting quotes

Love is still the answer…and it will always be…

The most highest and most beautiful form of love is forgiveness…

Dad, may your rest be filled with serenity in the arms of our loving heavenly Father…

your daughter, Renee

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