A Blessing and a Curse

I have just returned home from visiting with family and friends for the last few days. It was a blessing and a curse to get to see everyone. Its hard to believe that babies that I once played house with are now 20 and 21 years old. Everyone is so grown up, doing so well, creating lives of their own. I can't imagine when they start having babies. It makes me feel SOOOO old. The curse was the fact that we were gathering to mourn the loss of a great, great man. Ted was loved by so many people. It was so hard to see family and friends grieve and not really grasp the loss. It did not feel real. No part of it was fair.

It was a blessing that not one person could remember (and I am talking all the way back from his birth) Ted ever losing his temper. Not one person could remember him ever raising his voice. It is a curse that a man of this stature should be taken from the world at such a prime time of his life. It was a blessing that he went on at least one great vacation a year with his family- sometimes more. His kids got to know him more than most kids do. It is also a curse that they should know so well who they lost. It is a blessing to have so many wonderful memories with him, and yet a curse to know what we will miss out on.

Ted will be missed, there is no doubt about that. In the next few weeks and months as life returns to "normal" please pray for family that they would be able to celebrate his life rather than mourn his death.