Mama said there'll be days like this.....

Wow, I have been away since June. A lot has happened since then.

I started this blog to keep track of my feelings as a good friend passed away and I was full of things I thought I wanted to say or even write down, and maybe to keep some family posted on my life through pictures...and sometimes to just amuse myself by keeping a log of the days events, as it seems as though some days my life is a bit amusing to say the least. And so it turned out that I liked to write mostly about just that, my life, whether it was amusing/boring or just down right sad, that is what this blog has turned out to be.....stories about my life.

2011 started out with an ice storm that rocked our back porch and then some. It also brought down more pine trees around here than I care to remember. (cuz we had to clean them up) The Shankster and I slowly but surely got it all cleaned up and in the process the Shankster paid for it and ended up in surgery.
He went through several surgeries/procedures and a bunch of tests. A tree fell on our car while we were driving. We welcomed a new grandson....we lost a brother & best friend.

The Shankster was recovering from his June surgery and then in late July we both went on a journey with the Shanksters brother in the last days of his life.

I want to say that 2011 was the worst year the Shankster and I have ever spent together. Not just because he went through a number of surgeries and physical pain. Not because of all the mess we had to clean up from the pine trees. And Not because of his brother going through shear hell on this earth for about 3 months.

I want to say I never want to go through something such as that again. But I can't, what I have to say is this, I can't remember a time in my life I have ever spent so much time with family praying. We woke up praying holding hands and listening to Freddie sing the Lords praises. We went to bed doing the same. We laughed, we cried, we sang gospel songs, we prayed. We would spend most of every day listening to Freddie praise the Lord and NOT asking... "why me"? one time.

I can't say it was the best time I ever spent, but I have to say it was nurturing to have gone through it with Freddie. He kept going when most would have faltered, he smiled when others would have cried, he even told jokes where others would have been angry. Even on his worst days, he joked & sang. We saw him kicking up his heals walking down the hospital hall while holding onto an IV pole. We listened and laughed as we wheeled him in a wheelchair on yet another bad day all the while he sung Mama said there'll be days like this, There'll be days like this My Mama said (Mama said, mama said).......

It was the longest 3 months of my life, yet it went by too fast. I can't know why he was taken so early, but I do know he was ready. I only can hope I can have even half the grace this man had if I am ever faced with even a tiny bit of what he had to endure, and trust me, he had to endure more than any one I have known, but all he had to say about that was that it was not as much as Jesus Suffered.

I feel honored to have known such a man and more honored to have gotten to be with him to the end.

So here we are, 2012, and the story continues, without a very good man I might add, but it still continues.......Mama said Mama said....








Frederick Leonard Doerr
10/23/1951 ~ 10/28/2011
May He Rest In Peace