Sylvia

Mother died over a year ago, and it has taken me this long to be in a position to deal with her house. My dad died over thirty years ago, and she had all those years to putter around that house, arranging furniture, buying stuff, and buying more stuff!

Momma was able to take items and arrange them together and the feelings evoked when you looked at her home was "homey", "peaceful", "I could live here!"  But, without mom to truly make it a home, it's just a house with lots of stuff needing to be dispersed.

All six children have homes with their own things, and we are having trouble releasing items to new owners. We want to keep her things, but where to put them? So, we are making hard decisions on what to keep, what to give to friends and family, and what to give away.And we need to do it in a hurry. We have a buyer for the house and we need to be out in the next month.

Harry, Kara, and I went to Alexandria a week or so ago to spend a few days there to sort through some of the items that need attention. In a drawer in the living room, I found journals written by mom over the years. It seems she started keeping her thoughts written down after dad died. I don't remember her ever keeping a journal in all the years of growing up and visiting. I didn't know she was writing anything personal. I thought she was keeping a journal on her enjoyment of the ministry messages and meetings.

 

I realize how important it is to have all the children see her writings. She wrote about births and deaths and daddy. With that in mind, I am going to transcribe her journals to be shared with her children. As I read the first journal, I cried the two hours it took me to read through it. I not only saw my mother as a grieving widow, but I was able to "visit" my momma again. (She was "lost" to me so many months before she died).

 

As you read her thoughts concerning her children, her loss of her husband, her God;  I hope you can see the woman I was able to love and honor and truly enjoy for the many years given to me.