losses and other things.

Sharon sat on the low side of the nurses station in the Medical Intensive Care Unit. We are the same age and had not seen each other for some time and were catching up with lives, as you do with those you have known and worked with, hung out with, had breakfasts, lunches and dinners with, met spouses and children and yet remain merely acquaintances with, through work. Work-friends. In that, we don't yab on the phone and do the girlfriend comb each other's hair thing. We do go out occaisionally for breakfast or dinner or bowling, with other co-workers. "So you're not dating anymore?"..she asked with the same large question mark that everyone else had been using. Typically the question had been "Who are you dating now?", because it was changing with the frequency of changing shirts. No e-harmony, none of that stuff, just the serendipitous run-ins which lead to conversations which lead to phone numbers which lead to calls which lead to "dates", or usually, "date". ugh.
On this particular night my response was "yes", as in, not dating anymore, no more, nada. Yuck.

I looove valentine's day and will purposely avoid church today because the pastor, who has been married for eons, will be lauding his wife, again. And good for him...it is good, really, but as a singleton you sometimes just. get. tired. of. it.

"Well how are you going to get married again if you don't date?"..it was Paula this time asking me the question. "I don't know. Guess I'll just let God take care of that one." And she looked at me like I was possibly crazy. Yes, possibly.

Still my social calendar is full, though I go many places alone, and next weekend will be a girl's weekend in St. Louis. We will go out to eat and go to the Fox to see the play "Mama Mia". It will be fun, something we are all looking forward to, a getting away..

But tomorrow will be a visitation. another one. Sharon and Tim's son died on thursday at the age of twenty-two and it has been on my mind all weekend as I have thought and prayed and thought again and prayed some more, and everytime one of the boys have been home they have been required to hug and kiss me prior to leaving. "I love you" is something shared only with my children these days...and that is as it should be.

Maybe I'll go to church today after all...

"A wife of noble character who can find? She is worth far more than rubies. Her husband has full confidence in her and lacks nothing of value. She brings him good, not harm, all the days of her life..." Proverbs 31:10,11.**

(**secret: this is what I want to be. If not a 'wife' of noble character, then at least a 'woman' of noble character...)