Reflecting back... and on all the support!

Just having some fun with some old pictures of the girls... having some fun with princess costumes made from scarves coming from a hat made from paper shaped liked a cone! With 4 girls is usually involved something that was pretty... although I also remember that Nancy loved to make mud pies and just play in the mud... maybe that was her future cooking skills developing... How the years fly by!

Then the two little boys... just 6 weeks apart..  Two boys after all those girls... we had John and then Pat's brother and his wife that we farm with adopted a boy that was just 6 weeks younger!  How fun!

One of our trips to the cemetary to visit the brothers that they never got to know, but look forward to someday!  Family can get complicated and not what you think it will be when you first get married and have a lot of hopes and dreams! 

With our Church always there to support us with it's amazing sacraments and our family to share the celebrations... as well as the times we would grieve a loss, and look to the sacraments and our family to get us through those times.  Now with the last 15 months and our terror facing John's brain cancer... once again we wanted to do it with our Church to get us through! 

For myself, as I have shared often... the rosary was huge!  As a family we used our morning and evening prayers together and the sacraments were so important as was the prayer support!  John was annointed 3 times and that involves the sacraments of reconciliiation as well as Eucharist and the annointing itself!  Triple sacrament - so powerful!

I took first place in a hospice photo contest with this picture... It is Ruth, John and my parents' dog, Coty, walking on Beutiful Beach at sunset on Lake Michigan in late August about 7 years ago.  I wrote a short essay to go with it talking about how many people would ask me over my years of working for hospice... "How can you work with dying?" I tell them that death is a part of life that we all are going to face, but there is a lot of satisfaction in helping patients and their families have as much comfort, and do it in the comfort of their own home surrouded by their loving family if they wish.   Helping them walk into the sunset of their lives with as much comfort and support as possible!

I took this picture up at our farm in Wisconsin... that was just shortly after we had converted to the Catholic Church as a family... How I loved  those years of new discovery and growth... it has never stopped and there is so much for me to continue to learn and grow!  My prayer is that you all may be excited and motivated to grow in your faith and knowledge of our amazing and unending Church!  Jesus we trust in you!  Amen and Halleluia!

Bless-blless, Barb