David was able to get another 4 hour pass which allowed him to get outside again today and to watch more of Caleb's soccer tournament (see pictures below). He was also able in that time to stop home for a while in between games - his first time HOME in 17 days.
Although we had to eat very quickly, we were able to sit around the table together for a Sunday noon meal. That was so awesome!! I don't know how to describe how wonderful it was to once again have something so normal - a meal together, all five of us, around our table - happen again.
We could not have experienced what we did today without help with food and transportation and other things that we were helped with. Four hours is a short time, but because of the help we received we were able to maximize it!
Caleb's team came in fourth (today's games were 3-0 and 0-4). David got a really special surprise that caught him entirely off guard when the team presented him with the tournament ball with all their names signed on it. Cool. That will be a great memory of this team, this season and of these two special days where David finally got to enjoy the outdoors and taste some freedom again.
Because of the help we were given, I also had opportunity to do something that is really special to me personally, which I would not otherwise have had time for, because I would have had to be transporting David back to English Oaks and getting our kids home instead.
The absolute highlight of my year every year is to participate in the local oratorio society's presentation of Handel's Messiah. I had missed the first two weeks of practice and was afraid I might miss it altogether this year. It is always so meaningful for me to be part of that - touches me deeply. I was so glad to be able to be part of practice this afternoon and am hoping that I will be able to continue with it and be part of the presentation on December 2.
Just being at practice today was one of the most deeply calming and "centering" things I have experienced since David's stroke. Singing Handel's Messiah with many other voices speaks to my spirit like nothing else. Also, we practice and perform in a church that is very special to me - the church my parents were married in, the church I was baptized in, the church my great-grandparents attended, the church of my childhood. Just being there gives me a sense of peace. I remember as a child impressing into my mind the patterns on the stained glass windows, and I remember standing with my eyes closed during the postlude to feel the vibration of the organ music. It was then and remains for me today an especially sacred place.
JUST FOR FUN!
For those of you who knew me and my church pals back in the day I decided to just keep scanning photos while I was at it and put this up for you to see how many of us you can identify. These were the Sunday School pictures of my age group from 1971. If you didn't/don't know this group, feel free to just get a kick out of the church attire children were wearing back then (gotta love the bow-tie)!
2 comments:
Wow!! What great photos of Immanuel and of us, but now you have to tell us who is who cause I could only figure out, you, myself, Dave Witt? and either Don or Darren Piers in the top one. Maybe Dan Tanis in the bow tie??
For the bottom one I think Christa, Jana, Carol, Crystal, Stacy, and the other Piers twin. I think John Veenstra but I don't remember him going to our church.
Thanks for the memories. I feel the same way about Immanuel.
Thinking of you, Dave and your family. Denise V
Händel´s Messiah!
On the very same date you were practicing this wonderful choir music, I was in the Dome of Tromsø at a concert. It was Händel´s Messiah! What a coincidence.
The church is a wooden one from the 18th century, and I like sitting in it and feeling the warmth from the timber. It’s a long concert, Messiah, so I had a wonderful opportunity to let the different voices wash over me, and I had time to watch the many candles flicker on the ceiling high above, and think. I thought of my mother, who is struggling with her tough job as social worker; of my mother’s sister (my second mom as I call her, although she scoff it off), who is struggling with cancer; of their late father (my second father as I called him, which he was proud of) who meant so much –and still do- to the whole family; of my father who has meant so much in shaping me into what I am today… And I was thinking of other people that have touched me in different ways. Among them I was thinking of how you were all doing on the other side of the world.
I am so pleased to see David is out and about again, and hear that you have been able to gather up speed again in your studies and you work, though you see it towering up in front of you now.
I will not say “keep at it” for neither of you need to be tolled, but I would ask you to hum a little as you go through you days. It will lighten you. And Händel´s Messiah is a good peace to start with!
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