it's been a year????

So It never seems to be the best conversation to have with anyone, so this is always my safe place to get it out and prayerfully feel better. If you choose to read this I'm just letting you know that it will surely be a bit all over the place. I just need to get this out. So this time last year I was spending every minute in the hospital with my dear friend Donna. Having just gotten the news that she would not be with us much longer. From the day we got that news in the hospital, to the day she went to be with our Lord Jesus from her living room, it was 7 weeks. 7 of the most difficult, complicated, insane, tender, loving, fulfilling, agonizing, painful, intimate, endearing, frustrating, horrific, beautiful moments in my entire life. How each one of those words can perfectly describe each day of a 7 week period is beyond me but they do and how perfectly fitting they are. I remember that day so vividly. It was a 'k' Tues. and I was missing a time of celebration with all my 'k' sisters to say goodbye to our dear friend Carrie who was leaving to move to Santa Barbra. The group was preparing to celebrate and I was at the hospital with Tony kissing my girl up before she was wheeled into surgery. Tony and I shared a really nice meal together, talking and opening up to one another in what was an eye opening surprising conversation so ordained by the Lord. As we went back up to the surgery waiting area, we barely sat down when up walked Dr. Brown with the look of agony. When he sat down and told us that she would not make it and all the words that came after that, I had no idea that breath was able to be sucked out of you like a vacuum. The many hours that followed are a bit to painful to even write about but they are forever in bedded in my heart and mind. The irony in one place a celebration to a dear friend because she is moving away but laughter is the thing in the air. Then across town the very opposite of a celebration is happening because we will be saying goodbye to a friend who is moving away in quit a different fashion. I wonder why the Lord chose it that way. I do know that His way is always best, and I do not doubt that.
I miss my friend. I know that what we shared together in friendship is a rare, treasured gift. But SHOOT sometimes I get a bit self focused and grieve the lose and hate that I won't have THAT friendship again.
I miss our phone conversations through the night hours. Now I know she would have been perfectly able to go to bed at a normal time but she hated that I was not capable of doing so. Therefore, we would talk all night seriously all night. We would pray, we would solve every single issue that Children's ministry ever had. We would share everything we had studied in the Word that day with one anotherand often would end up doing a phone Bible study together. We would grieve for our friends who didn't share our love for prayer, worship and studying the Word of God. We would try to come up with clever ways to encourage them in the very things that we found the greatest joy in. Gosh what I would do for another one of those all nighters.
I think most people would find it interesting to know that Donna and I didn't get to go out and date. In fact Donna and I never once ever shared a meal together alone in a restaurant. I remember one Mother's Day all her and I wanted was to be together alone shopping at Walmart. We did get that wish and well let's just say it got interrupted after 1 hour from a husband that was wondering when we were coming back. lolololl ahahahaha - that still cracks me up. Tony Thompson you are a funny man. Bobby was outside playing with the kids and you were in the house watching some sporting thing alone. Good grief! Donna and I laughed about that all the way home that day well after she said a few other things first. We knew that our friendship just wouldn't ever have the luxury of dating.
I'm gonna continue this later - I have hubby calling and he's gonna be off to baseball in a few so I need to spend a bit of time with him before he's off being Mr. HR hitter.