I need to try harder....

I just opened another batch of sympathy cards, most with handwritten messages, and will add them to the growing stack on the dining room table.  Friends/colleagues from Ivy Tech, friends/colleagues from West Central, members of our church family, neighbors, friends, relatives.....so many have expressed their sadness for our loss of Gary's mother.  One of my friends from Dotti's (a weight loss forum that I participate in) sent a card and a hand-tatted angel holding a heart.  What a sweet remembrance! 

Plus the outpouring of love and friendship from those who came to the funeral home either for the visitation or the funeral or both....those who brought food to the house....those who sent flowers and remembrances.....those who brought snacks to the funeral home so we would have sustenance during the long evening....Sally and Laurel and those who furnished food for the funeral lunch...and Jim, who was with Agnes on her last day and came to the house within soon after she took her last breath so he could pray with us and comfort us.

While we are so thankful and grateful, I can reflect and see how inadequate I am as a friend and neighbor.  I send cards, but since Gary doesn't like to go to funeral homes, we rarely pay our respects to the deceased and their families.  We should.  While I have made several desserts for funeral lunches, I have not helped Sally with one.  My teaching schedule didn't allow it before, but I can help now.  I am not sure what I would have done if Becky hadn't been texting with me several times during the last weeks when I needed some encouragement.  Diane listens so well, even though I knew I repeated things to her several times.  Kathy called this afternoon just to check and see how I was doing.  

Am I as good of a friend and neighbor and church family member as they have been?  I don't think so.  I have always been busy with grading or running to Logansport to teach or some other thing that gets in the way.  

I do need to try harder.  I need to reach out more often to friends and neighbors to help when they need a meal or someone to listen or just to 'be there.'  Instead of letting Gary talk me into not going to the funeral home, I need to insist that we go to pay our respects and remind him of how much we appreciated those who came to express their sympathy when his dad, then his mom died.

Christian love.  Do onto others....  Compassion.  

I do need to try harder.