Year's End...

Here it is, December 29th, only two days left of 2007. In spite of the fact that we were blessed with one of the best days of our lives this year, it's generally been a very tough one.

My cousins Heather and Kevin lost their precious baby Grant this year. Though we hadn't met him personally, he did some amazing things for our family in his six months of existence. For me personally, the tragedy helped me get past an old mistake and work towards renewing a fractured relationship that I have missed terribly. I can't even begin to imagine the heartache, even though I have certainly lost someone that I loved dearly. But to lose a child, a child that you nurtured with your own being, is unspeakable to me. One thing I can understand, though, is the aftermath of tragedy. When all of the shock and trauma of an event have settled down, you are still left with an immense heartache. You still need the love and the tears and the comfort, maybe more than ever. And the loss isn't just erased with new babies, or a certain number of grief stricken days, or a few prayers. Sometimes, it's the moving on that is most painful because it is just that...moving on. You know that life will truly never, ever be the same again, yet it has to keep going.

In addition to the death of baby Grant, my Grandpa Hobbs also passed away this year. I was fortunate enough to be able to visit with him before he passed on, and while it brought no comfort at the time, I think it helped to ease the pain of his dying a few months later. He was in so much pain, he had no quality of life whatsoever. Seeing him in the sad state that he was in February, I truly felt glad for him when he finally died in June. It is a true statement that you have to BE a Hobbs to understand the Hobbs family. The funeral was a slightly bizarre occasion, but I think a lot of us felt blessed by the opportunity to be together again. This was Gordon's first full Hobbs family reunion, it required lots of explanations, to say the least. And while we Hobbs' come born equipped with the vital survival skill of humor, I felt no small amount of grief as well. Due to ancient family circumstances, many of us didn't know much about Owen, who was always owin'. I felt very sad that it was only in his death that we learned so much about who he was and where he came from. He had a wonderful sense of humor, and had been a very talented advertising executive. He lived a colorful life and came from fascinating stock. I felt very sad to have been such a stranger to a family member that I loved especially. Most touching was his evident love of his children and grandchildren and great grandchildren. In his address book, he kept careful records of the birth dates and current telephone numbers of each of his children, and even his grandchildren and great grandchildren. He took great pains to see to it that two of his sons and his wife, from whom he had been separated for nearly 50 years, were taken care of in his death. For a little old skeleton man who had lived on Social Security for so many years, he had scrimped and pinched to save enough that he could leave for two of his sons and grandma. His greatest worry was that he wouldn't be able to go to heaven because his body had not permitted him to quit smoking, a habit that had haunted him since he was a teenager. He didn't beleive that God would allow a smoker in heaven. That gives me great pain. He really was a wonderful person, and though I didn't have to live through the not-so-wonderful times, I reallydo grieve the loss of him and love him very much.

In our own lives as well, Gordon and I have dealt with some hard times this year. The year started out with both of us working in the mortgage industry. As things started to get difficult towards the end of winter, I sought work outside of the business. Gordon stayed with it, though. While we had lived a very comfortable life previously, we suddenly found ourselves with my limited income and his very instable income. And with a wedding to plan. We learned quickly to start cutting coupons and eating at home. It was, and has been, a very difficult time and has placed a lot of stress on our relationship. But I beleive that God has given us this time as a gift...I would never have believed that I could love Gordon any more than I did on the day I told him I would marry him. But in the year and a half that have elapsed since that day, my love for him has grown by tenfold with every passing day. It's amazing how love can grow with hard times. Every early morning, every long day spent doing manual labor, every blister on his hands was for me, so that he could give me the wedding and the life that I had dreamed of. The hard times, the hard work and the sacrifices that he made for me leave me with a feeling of immense love. It's humbling to be loved that much, and to have those feelings in return.

And then, of course, there are the good times. We had a beautiful wedding, an incredible honeymoon and now we have a simple, stable life that we have built together. And we have five kitties to come home to every day. So I guess we have been blessed, through the hard times and the good ones, too.