Parents....amongst other things

Had our parents been alive, today would have been their wedding anniversary...and they would have been married for 62 (? or so) years.

At my mother's funeral I reflected, as you do, on the harshness of a person's life who was born in 1920, whose father had died tragically, who had one abusive marriage and then who had finally found my father and they had lived ...as it were, happily ever after ...unfortunately Dad died when he was only 60. My theme was (at the funeral) that she had had a hell of a life. But in her marriage and her family, even after having a stroke, she found great enjoyment and fulfillment... she would indeed have said that she had had a "heaven of a life". Never easy, but I think they both did what they could.

It's an important reminder that heaven and hell may be on opposite sides of the same coin

Becoming one's father.

Sarah made dinner on Wednesday (an event in itself) she made Goulash...having just been to Hungary it is now only ever pr0nounced Gooiyash!
It was good, though ther noodle/dumplings were rather like casino betting chips.
My dad used to like to cook and when he discovered Mexican food we had chile con carne every other day. Tonight I have peeled onions, crushed garlic, sung Brahms (those awful Hungarian folk-songs, I once sat through a concert of 35 of them) chopped meat and crushed tomatoes.
Yes! We are having Gooiyash. I will use shell noodles rather than Casino chips!
Then maybe Sunday night too!....Then on Monday I'll change my name to Harry!

Life with father

I had a curious conversation with L yesterday about our father. She said "You know I had a conversation with our father..." I could not help but quip "You mean, our father who is not in heaven."
She looked at me quizzically as though I was implying that our earthly father had, for some reason known to me alone, been damned for all eternity! I should learn to keep my mouth shut. Had I known what she was then going to say perhaps I would have.
Any way she went on. "He said to me one day...I don't know if I believe in God."
Self-obsessed that I am I merely observed. "Well you are lucky you actually had an adult conversation with him, because I never did."
"After he died, " she went on, " I was really disturbed by this, and I had to talk to someone about it."
Thick as I am, this didn't seem outrageous to me since I think that doubting faith in God is a really healthy, and indeed inevitable. But this is not necessarily the case (I failed to realise) with someone whose faith is not so precocious as mine.
As I was driving home I realised she was actually telling me something that for her was pretty important for me to know.
Good to have such a conversation with your sister!!

And NO! I was not suggesting that I knew somethign about my father's eternal destiny that God had personally revealed to me.