Mews from Meowmix

To begin with, I solicit your prayers for Holly, who will undergo more surgery tomorrow due to the aneurysm and blood clot that almost took her life last summer.  This surgery is expected to be an in-the-hospital-overnight event, but we are naturally concerned and praying all will go well.

My parents were married in 1929.  In about 1990, maybe a year earlier, Daddy had to go to live in a nursing home due to his health.  My mother remained in the family home, along with one of my brothers.  On July 3, 1991, Mom went to be with the Lord, and my brother stayed on for a while.  However, he was not living there a year later.  On the anniversary of my mother’s death, the house burned to the ground.  It was eerie, and I grieved over the house.  My mother had loved the place and stayed there much longer than was prudent for her, health-wise, but we found we just had no recourse.  She was of sound mind and just could not be budged.  With the news of the fire, it was like losing her all over again, and I grieved.

Neither of my parents showed a whole lot of emotion except on rare occasions.  Daddy didn’t say a whole lot about the fire.  He hated it, of course, but I don’t remember him saying a whole bunch about it.

In March of 1993, Daddy was diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer, and he lived one month after the diagnosis.  He lived out his last days in the nursing home.  One day, during that month, my sister-in-law visited with him.  Somehow, somewhere, in the conversation, he talked a little to her about some of his feelings.  He made the statement that, “I don’t even have a home.”  Nancy responded with, “But, Grandpa, just look where you’re going!”

This exchange between him and Nancy broke my heart for his sake, and it made me happy that she could respond with a positive statement.  When we were planning his funeral, I asked that “I’ve Got a Mansion” be sung.  Daddy worked hard all his life and never had it easy.  I thought it very appropriate for him who lost the only home he’d ever owned in a fire, that late in his life, after having lost his wife of nearly 63 years……….affirming that he not only had a home now but a mansion!

We sang the song tonight in our devotional at church.  And my eyes got misty.  I made it almost to the end of the third verse, before my voice started breaking.  If I could talk to Daddy at this moment, I’d say to him, “Rest well in your mansion tonight, Daddy.  And don’t run the lawnmower over Mom’s rose bushes!”

Words to the song follow:

“I’m satisfied with just a cottage below, A little silver and a little gold;
But in that city where the ransomed will shine, I want a gold one that’s silver-lined.

Tho’ often tempted, tormented and tested, and like the prophet, my pillow a stone
And tho’ I find here no permanent dwelling,I know He’ll give me a mansion my own.

Don’t think me poor or deserted or lonely, I’m not discouraged, I’m heaven bound;
I’m just a pilgrim in search of a city, I want a mansion, a robe and a crown.

Chorus:

I’ve got a mansion, just over the hilltop, in that bright land where we’ll never grow old.

And someday yonder, we will never more wander, but walk on streets that are purest gold.”

TODAY’S SMILES:

1. More Barney
2. Finishing the baked spaghetti for supper that I made on Monday!
3. Starting a pot of homemade hamburger soup for supper tomorrow night (to be had with cornbread).
4. Getting closer to Friday, which is an important day for nephew Phil.

See you tomorrow evening.  And may God bless.

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