Families

Why is it that families never come together until deaths, weddings or some special event?  I know this is a fast paced world we are living in, but we should all keep in touch more than we do! It doesn’t take long to pick up a phone and tell someone that you love “I  miss you” or “I  love you” or “Wish I could see you!”
I was thinking about it when my sister Sue and I were on our way home from visiting  Edith and some of her children at the nursing home, where it  looks like my precious sister has only a few days more to live.
She will leave that old worn out 92 year old body of clay and go home to be with her Lord and our family that has gone on ahead of her. There she will have a new body and will never have to suffer anymore.
I stood and looked at that precious face and fought to keep back the tears. That face that had such a beautiful smile for everyone she met. Those beautiful blue eyes that made you feel like she could look inside your soul. The love she had for her five boys and the boundless love they had for her, so like the love God has for all His children! She would leave all these things behind when she makes that final journey to Heaven  for Eternal life with Jesus.
I watched as two of her grandchildren and two of her sons stood looking at their Mom, so silent and still. Their love for her radiated from their sad faces and I remembered how I felt the morning our Mama died. You think you are prepared for it but when they draw that last breath, it hurts so much you feel like you are going to die yourself. My heart still hurts when I think of Mama and it has been forty three years.
I will miss my sister the rest of my life! The love I always felt when she looked at me, that sweetest of smiles, the “pick me up” kind of thing I felt when I needed someone to talk to and called her, her love for her brothers and sisters. No one (outside of God) could love like my sister Edith loved.
My son Kevin reminded me, when he told me about the fact, that she ALWAYS came back to the kitchen door to speak to him before she would leave the restaurant! He has always been a quiet sort of guy, but she wanted to let him know she loved him. After all, he was her nephew! She loved ALL of her family!
I don’t have time or enough space to tell all the good she has done all her life. She loved her God supremely and didn’t mind telling anyone. She sang and played that piano for Him with Joy and Praise and lifted Him up in any way she could. Her toe tapping music filled all of us with joy too!
It’s hard to imagine that I will never again hear her play the piano or hear that wonderful alto voice sing, but one day (not too much longer probably) I will join her and the rest of our family in Heaven! WE will have a choir of our own, as many as Chaneys as there is, and we will sing forever more, as we will be FINALLY HOME.
Pick up the telephone. Call someone in your family! Invite them over for coffee. Take  someone out for lunch. Send someone flowers or candy. Or just say – “I love you”. Stay in touch as a family! Don’t let time slip away and realize, as I did today as I saw Kellie, Edith’s granddaughter, and found out her daughter was about eight or nine years old, and I have not seen that  child but a couple times and they only live five miles away from me! Life is short and it slips away too quickly! STAY IN TOUCH!
LIFE IS ALL ABOUT FAMILY!!!!!!!