The journey in one slide

I am in nursing school now and extern on an inpatient oncology floor.  I love my patients…I can finish every sentence in my mind, I know every look, I can feel every sigh as though it was yesterday.  We are studying Oncology in our High Acuity class this week and my notes from this slide sum up our 5 year battle.

Goals Treatment

Cure – Hope for cure

Control – if no cure – but can maintain =change game plan = Hope for control

Palliation – if can’t cure/control = relief & control symptoms = Hope for peaceful death

We hoped through every stage and asked God to lead us to the next…He rewarded us with a peaceful death.

If my demeanor, my smile, the look in my eyes can share a piece of that Hope we knew my time in that room was well spent.

It takes time

5 years later, I think I am really beginning to live again my first love.  I realize it means to willing do what God asks, no questions, no reservations.  To go head-first into the uncertain future with confidence and joy that there may be suffering, but to know it will be alright.  Thank you for praying for me. 

He showed me

He showed me how to live, how to love another completely and without reservation, how to be a better person, how do let someone go…and he showed me how to die…
I am forever changed because I knew him and I am so grateful he loved me. Thank you God for Jeffrey.

Final Words

I don’t think it likely I’ll be posting on the Jeff Report anymore…. Of course it’s become mostly randomly sporadic in the last few months.
But that’s not because God has stopped working in our lives, Or allowing us to work in each others existence, it’s just so radically different obviously. But Jeff still gives his all for me…
Going home to Pittsburgh a couple of weeks ago was healing on so levels and brought me to a new level of understanding of myself and my new life. God loves me and continues to bless me and unfold before me what He has in store…
To that end I was ready for a new person in my life. I just didn’t know if God would allow it…when you have had what Jeff and I did on this earth it’s hard to think God will bless you so richly a second time. But He has!
I am recently in a relationship with a wonderful man. He is not oddly very similar in personality type to Jeff, although bringing his own uniqueness to it. I have a “type” who knew?
But what I want to share is if you submit and truly surrender to God’s Providence for you, you will blessed wildly. God knows the deepest most interior desires of your heart and His love for you is perfect beyond anything you could plan for yourself.
I’ll share the story of this new love and my new life and God’s involvement on my page. “The Big Sea of Life” and I hope to write a book based on this blog…
I hope the Jeff Report will continue to touch souls and show them the beautiful Mercy of God’s Love.
Thank you for sharing our Journey…
Linda

It’s been an interesting sort of week spent with Jeff, well that’s what Jillybean and I are going with.

Sunday night dinner at Jillybean and Mike’s with three cats affectionate with me.  One that apparently is not into anyone and was climbing me.  This is unusual for me, they don’t usually like me, I must put out an “I’m a dog person vibe” and I am allergic.  But cats always LOVED Jeff.  And even though they were all over me and the ceiling fan was going which usually would have sent my allergies into high alert in minutes because I had forgotten to take a Zyrtec, there was nothing.  Not a sneeze, not an itchy eye or swollen throat.  Weird.

Monday afternoon an on the spur suggestion by a friend that we just go NOW and visit Jeff’s resting place at Honey Creek Woodlands which was incredibly peaceful and felt right.

Then this morning I had a dream that was just like nothing had happened to separate us.  I’ve had one other dream that I remember about him, right after he died and he was angry with me for bothering him.  He stood in a doorway dressed ready to cover a fall football game and glared at me.  But in this morning’s dream, I was packing for a mission trip to the South Pole with Mike and Linda.  (I’m planning on going on the Haiti medical mission trip this year)  Anyway, as happens in dreams, Jeff just was there, like he had always been, sweet and goofy and things were like they used to be maybe coming home after covering a late game…He was smiling and teasing me about not having the packing done yet and forgetting to get water – I guess I think you need to take water to the Pole! We were taking a blue cockatiel with us, these do not exist here, but oh he loved his little birds.   He said he was dead, but that he wasn’t going to die again. I asked him if he was going to go back to working at the paper and that’s when my Conscience Self, drat her, came in and said “Wait, that doesn’t happen, he’s dead, he can’t go back to work” and I woke up.

I don’t know what it all means.  He won’t die again? a lot of possibilities come to mind. It’s been pointed out many times that Jeff is so close to me, just not physically present.   Right now, it’s making me cry with longing, but it was nice at the moment of the dream to know that warm intimacy of time with him just living and that’s what I need to hold in my heart.

I just have to take it as it comes and roll with it, and Jillybean said wisely next time not to wake myself up.  AMEN to that sister!

A Reason, a Season, a Lifetime

I received the following in an email the other day.  It was one of those forwards that I usually just discard without even opening.  But I noted the sender’s address and I knew if she sent it, then it was worth something to read it.  And I’m very glad I did.

I’ve felt like Jeff and I were cheated of our future together, of growing old together.  However, I realized after reading that poem not to look at my life as if Jeff was yanked from our future together.  He came and went as he was supposed to.  It’s not that I’ve been “cheated” out of my future with him.  We were together for the duration of time we were meant to be.  God knew, and knows, and has been here before me getting this new season of my life ready for me, giving me new reasons and moments of a lifetime yet to look forward too.

I am incredibly grateful for having Jeff for a reason, for a season, and changing me for a lifetime.

Reason, Season, or Lifetime

People come into your life for a reason, a season or a lifetime.
When you figure out which one it is,
you will know what to do for each person.

When someone is in your life for a REASON,
it is usually to meet a need you have expressed.
They have come to assist you through a difficulty;
to provide you with guidance and support;
to aid you physically, emotionally or spiritually.
They may seem like a godsend, and they are.
They are there for the reason you need them to be.

Then, without any wrongdoing on your part or at an inconvenient time,
this person will say or do something to bring the relationship to an end.
Sometimes they die. Sometimes they walk away.
Sometimes they act up and force you to take a stand.
What we must realize is that our need has been met, our desire fulfilled; their work is done.
The prayer you sent up has been answered and now it is time to move on.

Some people come into your life for a SEASON,
because your turn has come to share, grow or learn.
They bring you an experience of peace or make you laugh.
They may teach you something you have never done.
They usually give you an unbelievable amount of joy.
Believe it. It is real. But only for a season.

LIFETIME relationships teach you lifetime lessons;
things you must build upon in order to have a solid emotional foundation.
Your job is to accept the lesson, love the person,
and put what you have learned to use in all other relationships and areas of your life.
It is said that love is blind but friendship is clairvoyant.

— Unknown

Becoming secure in being “just me”

I had one of those days recently that could only have been made dealable by Jeff.  He always brought peace and order to the chaos of life.   Without him where is the security?  It’s in my soul.  It comes from God, from my opening my heart to God like I opened it to Jeff.  It’s taken me a while to see it, but I do now. I can hear his voice in the love of my friends.  I don’t know what life is going to bring me, but I know that God gave me Jeff, He will bring me what I need to be without him if I open my heart to His most perfect will.

Black and Gold Crayons

It occurred to me recently as I posted on Facebook the other day that our life together is becoming a memory.

Every day that slips by takes me one day further from my Love. But as was pointed out to me, although we cannot add to those memories, they can’t ever be taken away either.

And it’s weird to realize how I still define myself. I’ve noticed that I find it necessary to say that I have a dead husband, as he’s only dead for a limited time.  You don’t have to get it, I hope you never have to. Interestingly enough, I’ve started to feel more comfortable wearing my wedding and engagement ring than not.  For the last few months I just couldn’t, but for the moment it just feels right.

Paradoxically, I am also reminded that I am very blessed and there are many moments cherish to come in my life.  I don’t see that as very possible sometimes, then at others, especially right after God has given me a besito it’s so easy to believe.  Like the other night a great experience that couldn’t have been planned better  and it was as if Jeff were there, followed by a great dinner with friends who are family and on the table waiting for us, Black and Gold crayons…

It’s a good thing…

That he was not alive to see that game today.  There would have been no joy in the Man Room.  But I would rather have no joy that way than this.  This football season seems like it will break my heart for many reasons…But I still am wearing my Black n’ Gold!
 
I rationally decided to let go of NFL ticket:
1. It’s expensive and I am often working through game time.
2. I can listen to press conferences, but realistically can not stand to watch a game so much without becoming physically ill.

This is one of the real moments that I have to deal and work through, by God’s grace and His power to heal.

Long time no write

One of my nephews in Christ asked me last night, “Do you still write on the Jeff Report?”  I said not for a couple of months.

Life has been kind of crazy coming out of the cocoon but it’s good…