Everyone who has
brought us a meal is like a hand held out to steady us. I have a friend from church online that will
just mentions that he is reading my blog, another hand reached out giving
support. Some take us out for coffee,
paying for my daughter’s Slurpee, stopping by to visit, going to Roderick’s
gravesite, wearing the Roderick Rempel tournament shirt to include Roderick on
the first day of school, wearing Roderick’s hockey number on the helmet to honour
Roderick, sharing memories of Roderick, listening to us talk about Roderick and
our struggles since, that’s a big one, listening and allowing us to talk and so
many other things. Talking about it is
such therapy. If we have only two
friends that we can share with it isn’t long until we’ve said it all but if we
have a 100 friends we can say the same thing over a hundred times and every
time it relieves some of the pain.
I know that most of
you don’t know what a difference your caring acts have made, whether they are big
or small. Some of you might think that
your small caring act has probably been lost among the hundreds and that we
don’t know how much you actually care and I’m sad to say that there might be
those actions that we have missed but I still know even if we might have
forgotten they have still helped us continue on, but I will also say there are
many small acts that I still often think about and know that the person who did
that has no idea what a huge difference they made.
There are a couple
things though that I want to mention here that have touched me deeply. Cooper Nemeth’s family, whom we do not know
and have never met, less then a month after they buried the body of their own
son, they heard about Roderick’s accident and stopped by with a whole box of
frozen meals, I have to this day not met them, I have asked for their address
to contact them but haven’t got it yet. In
their pain they reached out to comfort us.
Roderick’s cousin
got married on mother’s day. Him and his
bride decided to honour Roderick on their wedding. They had small photos of Roderick attached to
all their bouquets, then instead of throwing the bouquet to the single ladies
they gave it to me for mother’s day in memory of Roderick. That touched us very deeply, on their special
day which was suppose to be all about them besides a wedding is suppose to be a
happy celebration but they allowed us all to cry for Roderick that was to me a
huge sacrifice they made and indeed very generous of them.
When I was in youth
I had a friend that was about 5 years older then me who lost her husband
suddenly. She gave me some books to read
that were written by other young widows and after reading those I was always
afraid to go up to someone who had lost a loved one for fear of offending them
because I had no idea what it was like or what would be appropriate to
say. We do not find that so. A lot of people do not know what to say and
that is completely fine because we don’t know what to say either. Even though some of you might think you’ve
said the wrong thing I do not feel like that.
I can feel the love and the care so deeply I do not focus on words that
might have come out a bit wrong or different then intended.
Being strong is a
part of who Roderick is. Everyone who
knew him knew his physical strength and now we need to be strong for him. Don’t they say one way of overcoming grief is
to live for our loved one? Roderick was
strong now we need to be strong for him.
Another gift that Roderick had was to overcome offences quickly. He did not waste time holding grudges. I remember when Roderick was a toddler I saw
another toddler following a kid around upset that this kid had taken a toy that
he wanted. Roderick was not like
that. If someone took his toy from him
he would just quickly give him or her a punch or a shove and then it was
over. I remember saying if I could get
to him and hold onto his hand before he hit then he had already forgiven. He lived life like that, he often acted
before he thought and that got him in trouble many times but he was just as
quick to forgive and be friends again.
I remember Roderick
was so upset at his dad one time because Jake wouldn’t allow him to do
something he really wanted. Later when
he came back into the room I asked him if he was still upset. He said, “no because I’ve learned the only
one I’m hurting when I’m angry with dad is myself”.
So thanks to all of
you for loving us, caring for us, supporting us and praying for us and thereby
helping us to be strong. Thanks for surrounding us with so much support that there is no room to fall. We are so
blessed by all of you.
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