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 21 May 2026

This morning there is a myriad of emotions going on inside.

I have friends here named Dennis and Sue. They accept me for who I am as I do them. Dennis got pretty sick on May 5th, ended up in the hospital in and out of ICU, then into hospice and on the 16th he passed away. They were married over 20 years. She is devastated. On top of that Dennis' dad is 94 and is also in hospice in the VA hospital with Dementia. Sue is his only relative here and the only one he wants around him.

 I thought losing Steve after watching him slowly die in our living room was difficult to go through, but I wasn't emotionally attached to him like Sue is to Dennis. I'm watching her walk this path and trying to be there for her while learning more about myself at the same time. 

I don't know how to love anyone like that. I don't know how to give that much of myself to anyone, not even to Jesus. I don't know how to trust anyone, even myself, deep enough, real enough, honest enough, to open myself that deeply. 

When we lived in Atlanta, Dad was injured on the job with a sliver of wood into his eye at the lumber yard and was rushed to the hospital in Boise over 100 miles away. Mom was notified but couldn't leave home to go be with him. She knew exactly where his pain was because her eye went into pain the moment he was injured, but she didn't know why, and yet, she did know it was because of his pain, if that makes any sense. I stayed up with her while the others went to bed and when he came in the door, his eye was bandaged and I KNEW what she had been feeling and why. Theirs was a unique kind of love that I had never seen before or since.  Since that time, that's the kind of love I wanted to have in my life. I thought I had it once, but I was wrong.

I still want that kind of love, and yet I already have it. Jesus loves me that way. A few times I have felt that kind of connection to Him, but I've not stayed faithful, even to Him, much less to myself. 

I recently removed a 5 year friend from my life. He proved that he thought of himself as more important than anything else and I reached the end of my patience with trying to keep him around me. I felt emotionally drained every time he was around me and I decided my peace was more important to me than his false friendship.  Yes, it hurts, but not deep enough to try to allow myself to try to fix it.  So, one more experience trying to put my peace in first place, and trying to be truer to me. It's hard. It feels like I always end up on the bottom of the pile.... and no one notices.

 

Sigh..... 

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