1 . . . almost . . . just a couple of days

On Sunday Kennedy will turn 1!!! I can't believe how fast this year has gone! And how much I love this little one!!! She has made my heart happy this year, when there were dark days and I didn't know how I would muddle through . . . her happy little face has brought me such joy!!!

This year has gone by so fast! I can't believe you are 1!!! Granny loves you baby!!!

Week 5~ Church

I sobbed all through church yesterday . . . not just cried . . .but totally sobbed, the kind where you want to get a grip . . . but you can't. But I guess I should tell you the beginning of the story before I start with the sobbing. I guess I tell you that I sobbed, because I want to prepare you for it . . . .

We went back to the church we went to in Week 4 . . . because we "thought" we had listened to a guest speaker, but it turns out that he was the regular guy. Silly us . . . but I really wanted to hear more about Esther any way, so I'm glad we went.

When we walked in there was a sign and a whole bunch of stacks of bread . . . it said "Free Bread" so we went to get one and the bread was all moldy . . . Why would they give away moldy bread??? We didn't take one. We can conduct our own science experiments with our own bread at home we don't need to have moldy bread from someone else. I still don't understand that.

5 weeks ago when we started going to church, I didn't know any of the songs, I didn't really sing along. . . I just read the words on the screens, but now, I sing . . . my love of choir and music is coming back to me, and my voice is loud and strong! It feels good to sing like that again, if this ends up being the church we stay with, eventually I hope to join the choir . . . but that is neither here nor there at the moment.

The place in the church where we seem to like to sit is on the left side of the sound booth, and from where we sit I can see who ever is controlling the controls for the band. The guy doing it yesterday was so . . . what's the word I'm looking for . . . Amazing . . . That word will work. He was so into the music, that he was bopping and dancing in the sound booth, and waving his arms. I just couldn't help but to smile at him enjoying the music! to me that was VERY inspirational . . . He apparently loved the music!

The lady who got up and gave a pray talked about how back in ancient Israel the high priest dudes didn't get to go in to the main part of the worship place (ok I have all the wrong words for these things but the meaning behind it is what I'm trying to get to . . . eventually) but once a year, and he would bring blood to sprinkle around and incense to burn . . . What struck me is that they used incense . . . about 15ish years ago I studied with an Apache Indian Shaman for about 2 years . . . I learned a lot. The Indians use "Smudge" and have wonderful stories about smoke, how smoke is the manifestation of "spirit" in the physical world . . . It cleanses and helps the body and mind to connect with what is going on. So in my Cheri world I'm thinking, that even though we call things differently . . . and have different names for things, maybe all these religions and nationalities are not as different as we think they are . . . there are common grounds between so many things that in my world I would like people to stop worrying about what makes their way right and this way wrong and just get along.

So Jason (The pastor) gets up to speak . . . he starts by reminding us where we left Esther last week . . . She was praying and hoping that she wouldn't be killed for going to the king with out permission.

When Esther gets to the "throne room" (My word, I don't know if that is actually what it was called) the king sees her and is happy that she is there. WOOO HOOO! She is NOT going to be killed for going to the king with out permission!!! (I didn't think she would, but then you never know what is going to happen in the olden bible day) The king tells her that he will grant what ever she asks up to half of his kingdom. She says she wants him (the king) and the bad Jew hater guy (Still cant remember his name) to come to a dinner. The king grants that, and at the dinner he asks her what she wants again, and she says come again tomorrow. So he grants that too . . . On the second night she tells the king that the "Bad Jew hater guy" has planned to kill all the Jews and asks that he not let this happen (That's the summary of that) so basically the Bad Jew hater guy is hung from the gallows that he had planned to hang Esther's adoptive father from (The guy that asked her to go to the king and help her people). Esther had worried that she would be killed, but then she thinks that God had a plan for her, that maybe that was why she was queen, so she could help her people. I like that . . . God had a plan for her, but she didn't know what it was till she was in the middle of it.

That's pretty much where we left the story . . . but what really got me, was how the pastor applied it to today. He talked of how this part of the Esther story ended wonderfully, but that there are a lot of stories in the bible that don't end so beautifully . . . but that does not mean that God did not call these people to do what they did . . . Humm . . . something to ponder . . . not every "Good" story has a happy ending. (The romance writer in me, doesn't really like that, because Romance novels ALWAYS have a happy ending)

He (The pastor) talked about how he and his wife had adopted two children from (I think it was) Haiti. He says it was horrible hard to do, and that it took so much work and so much more time than they had anticipated. Then one night they get a call from the adoption agency and that same mother has had another child, and they were asked if they would consider adopting this child too, to keep the siblings together. They showed a picture of this beautiful black baby sitting on the floor in a little white dress. I fell in love instantly with this beautiful little baby, but there there never had been a baby that I didn't love! At first he didn't want to adopt another child because it was such a struggle and so hard to do the last time, but then he said he listened to God and tried to figure out what his roll was in Gods story. (That was a big topic of the service, "What is your roll in Gods story for you? What does God call you to do??) They start the adoption. And he gets excited to know that God put this in place for him/them, that he feels like he was very much called to take these children, and to love them and give them a home and a better life than they could have had back in their home country. The pastor goes on to say, that they get another call about a month later, that this beautiful little baby girl got sick and they took her to the hospital and they gave her antibiotics to help her get better. Well, she had an allergic reaction the the antibiotic and she . . . Died.

I thought to myself I must have heard him wrong, this beautiful baby that he just showed me on the screen and I feel in love with couldn't be dead . . . Babies can't die . . . Why is he telling me this HORRIBLE story???? Maybe he's just kidding . . . Why the hell would he be kidding about something like that . . . oh my god . . . Why did he tell me this (Because at this point he is speaking ONLY to me, in my head and heart I am the only one in the entire building)

Oh my God! my heart is breaking! How could God have called this family to adopt this beautiful little girl and then when they fall in love with her, and they open their hearts to her . . . God takes her away???

Then my heart starts thinking of my Thomas. How I opened my heart to Thomas and loved him totally and unconditionally . . . how he was MY boy . . . Was that my roll in Gods story for me? To have Thomas? To have Thomas only for a little while? To be his rock when he didn't have anyone else to cling to, (He didn't even have God at that point, it wasn't until about a year before his death that he found God and a church family) What did God want me to learn from this? Is there a lesson? What is My part in Gods story for me???

As we left the church, I was still sobbing, Jessie is holding me and we are walking to the car, we always talk about the church service in the car on the way to where ever we are going after church . . . And I'm trying to drive, and sob and talk, and I can't form words . . . and Jessie comforts me with "it's ok to cry." She is so sweet . . . I tell her I'm so tired of being sad . . .

I realize that my whole life I have been taking people in to my life and heart and helping them. I guess when I moved to Aurora I started with Jaqui (We were 8), I took care of her, she didn't really need me to, but I did nonetheless, as we grew in to adults I have had to really rework my head so that I let her be her own adult rather than the person I have to care for (Sorry Jaqui for experimenting on you! Love you!) I moved on to the lost and struggling, the "Extras" as I so lovingly call them, and there have been MANY . . . MANY MANY MANY!

When Thomas Died, one of my first Extras Kendra came and drug me out of the house, She is in her 30's now. She took me to lunch and made me eat, she hugged me and held me, and let me play with her sweet baby (I love babies) . . . and as she was leaving me, she pulled me in to her arms and whispered in my ear, "I know how much you love Thomas, it's as much as you love me . . . and that's a lot." My legacy. To love. . . . That is MY part in Gods story for me. I know that. I'm called to take these "Extras" in . . . I don't have control over what happens in the long run, but I'm there when they need me . . . And I guess I didn't have control over the Thomas thing either. I didn't have control that his parents were horrible, I didn't have control that he got Leukemia . . . I didn't have control that he died. Don't get me wrong I'm still mad about that, but now I'm thinking maybe there is part of the "Story" that I don't know yet . . . Why did God bring Thomas in to my life, and then take him away? What am I supposed to learn or know from this???

So, I have been pondering and thinking, and crying . . . and crying, since yesterday . . . trying to figure out what my roll in God's story is . . . and you know what I figured out . . . NOTHING . . . I don't know . . . I don't know what my roll is . . . I don't know why I had to loose Thomas, I don't know why I've taken in all these kids . . . I don't know . . . WHY? and at this point in my life I don't know that I will figure it out . . . because I am not writing this story- God is.

Remember why . . .

Wednesday, Tim came in to the store . . . and said, "I was thinking about lunch , what time do you get off?"

I said probably about 1, "What do you have in mind?"

"Beau Jo's!!!" (I should stop the story right there and tell you about Beau Jo's . . . they started in this little mining town, actually the restaurant sits on top of the mine shaft . . (its haunted , but that's a different story) They make the most AMAZING pizzas, the crust on the edges is like two inches thick and you eat it with honey . . . and the pies are so yummy, you just drool thinking about them . . . they have all these different sauces and toppings . . . they are so good~ I just remembered I have one piece left in the fridge~ BREAKFAST!!!! (I usually get a garlic cream sauce, with Italian sausage, Canadian bacon, mushrooms and black and green olives! So yummy, I might have to stop writing and go get my pizza out of the fridge . . . ok I'm back and munching away! Don't mind the crumbs on my key board , I will lick those off later!)


"In Idaho Springs?"
(Idaho Springs is about an hour away, UP the moutain)

"Yeah, why not?"


I couldn't think of "Why not?" So when I got off work we took a "toodle" and went up the mountain.

There is NOTHING better than Colorado in the Fall!

So we toodled, and ate the most amazing yumminess, and then wandered through the little town, it is kind of touristy, but it's so small that I think most people miss the town if you really don't know it's there or have a reason to go to it. There are some wonderful little stores there, and I like to go in and see what they have.

After that we got in the car and I thought we were going to come home . . . but Tim drove us to the hot spring spa . . . I'm like "honey, what we doing here?" He said, "Well I thought we could get a private bath and sit in the water for a while." (We had to have a private bath because we didn't bring our suits .) So we rented a private bath and some towels, and went to our own little room . . . (sorry I can't tell you too much more about this . . . it's censored, and Tim doesn't like it when I tell our business to everyone, so I'm not going to tell you that we got naked and got jiggy . . . that just wouldn't be my style . . . I won't tell you that we both needed the opportunity to reconnect because my work, and his work, and the house, and the friends, and the kids, and the dogs and the robbery and . . . and . . . and . . . and .. . . have all made us a bit fragmented, so the reconnecting was WONDERFUL!! )

After our adventure at the hot spring, we went to Tommy knockers bar and had a beer , and laughed and talked (after glow) and then we decided to take the scenic route through the mountains to come home, it was dusk, and it had just started to rain lightly . . . and we were listening to Dean Martin . . . It was relaxing, it was wonderful . . . it made me happy.

So I guess what I'm getting at with this, is that Tim and I took the time to remember why we love each other and why we are together in the first place. Sometimes life can get in the way of that . . . and you have to pause, and take the time to focus on what the really important things are in life . . . each other!

October 7

Today is the anniversary of my Biological father's death. This is him and his mom and dad. Don't you just love her hair??

This is my grandpa and grandma, Grandpa's mother (is the old lady in the middle) Joe is the oldest boy on the top row right hand side.

Joe and Tiffini (Tiffini is my younger sister)

Joe and Emily (Tiffini's daughter)

I think, (But don't know for sure) that this is Joe and Tiffini.

Joe and Emily.

It was also his mother's birthday. (She passed away about a year ago.) This is a picture of she and I at the dinner after Tiffini's graduation from Texas A&M ~ (this picture was taken about 2 months before Joe died.)

The memories of these things, these people, put me in a strange head space . . . They are MY FAMILY . . . but I didn't know them . . . they didn't know me . . . The person I am, is NOT because of who they were ~ other than biologically. The core of my being, my morals, my attitudes, my kindness, my love . . . did not come from them, for they really never showed me any love or kindness . . . I was an obligation that every once in a while would pop up in the form of guilt . . . "Oh I really wanted to call you and talk to you for the last 20 years, but just couldn't find the time." kind of thing. I guess I don't fault them . . . well, not much . . . I was that "out of sight, out of mind" family member . . . Just that daughter/Granddaughter in Colorado. The one that the week after Thanksgiving they would get a Christmas card from with pictures of a life they didn't know about.

I tried to reach out . . . To the best of my ability . . . but it's hard to be a young girl, and reach out to a family who had never really put any effort in to knowing you . . . and then when I became an adult, I had reached the point where it wasn't as important to me any more . . . why should I care when none of them ever did . . . right?

When Joe (my biological Father) passed away (Don't even get me started on the drama of his death . . . I don't have the strength to get in to that right now . . . maybe another day, or year . . . or maybe never . . . I don't know.) I realized how bad I felt for never being cared for by this side of the family . . . I realized that these people, this "family" of mine was gone now, and that I would never have the opportunity to get to know them or like them. (For me, Joe was hard to like . . . he was brash and at times rude . . .) And for that I grieved . . . I would never have the opportunity to find something I liked about Joe . . . I would never have the opportunity to hear all of his stories . . . I would never get to know the parts of him that so many other people knew and loved . . . and for that I ached . . . I hurt . . . I was angry . . . (Ok, truth be told, I still am kind of angry.) And then rifts happened between me and my younger sister . . . She had stories . . . she had thoughts and love for him . . . I wanted to hear those stories, but one of the things I don't think she realized was that the stories made me sad, and at times angry . . . she got to know this man, who never bothered to even send me a birthday card . . . she had all these stories, all of these times with him . . . and I had NONE of that, and the few times I did get to be around Joe, he was a goober of gargantuan proportion . . . So how come she got all the love and wonderfulness, and all I got was the distance and the rudeness??

But nevertheless, I grieve . . . I still ache for the things that could have been . . . should have been . . .

For the last year, since my sweet Thomas has been gone, I have learned a lot about grief . . . There is no rhyme or reason for the things we feel and think . . . they just are. It seems for me, I usually ache for the things that that person will never get to do . . . Joe will never truly "know" me, he will never know how fantastic my boys are . . . he will never know how I can see a color and then remember that color and match it . . . he will never know that I make the worlds greatest Chili . . . or that my chicken artichoke squares are things people request me to make for them. He will never know how big my heart is . . . He will never know that I can draw and paint, and how I love totally and unconditionally . . . he will never know those things about me . . . and I ache for that . . . part of me always has wondered . . . why didn't he love me?

This man was supposed to be my Father . . . he was supposed to love me and want to know me and want to know my kids . . . but he didn't . . . He never did.

And then he was gone.

And the opportunity to ever have those things happen in my life . . . was gone with him.

So today I grieve for the memory of Joe . . . for all the things that I wished and hoped for, and all the things that will never be.

Searching . . . still . . . could it have happened??

Jessie and I got up yesterday and went to church again, I have been asking around and finding out what churches people go to, and if they really like them . . .

So yesterday we tried out Southeast Christian Church in Parker Colorado. It was huge!!! I guess it has a private school in it also. The sanctuary holds about 1500 people . . . that's a lot! (And from what I've heard the band Mercy Me has come there and played. Mercy Me's song "I can only imagine" is my song for Thomas . . . http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWMk_MoFTFM (I'm sure I've shared it with you before, but here it is again.) It's such an amazing song, and if going to this church gives me a chance to actually see this song performed live I think it would be one of the most beautiful moments of my life.)

Yesterday there was a guest speaker so we really didn't get to hear the real pastor (he said a prayer, but that was all we got to hear from him.), so we are going to go back there next week to hear the real pastor, but if he is anything like the guest speaker, I think we may have found our church. We really liked it that much!!!

The music was great! Not too loud, not too obnoxious, and they had a choir that got up and sang too, I love choir music! And hope that someday when my life is more settled, that I can join a choir and sing with them.

This is just a weird personal thing, I think the director of the music is this bald guy, and he sings kind of nasal-ly, and when he sings he "Scrunches" up his face like he is smelling something really icky . . . And you can see this scruched up face huge on the monitors . . . I had to stop watching him on the monitors and just watch him . . . because his scrunchy icky smell face was getting on my nerves. I know that silly . . . but it's those little things that everyone notices, but I'm the only one that will actually tell you the way it is.

So the sermon yesterdays was on Esther . . . (This is the super fast, Cheri condensed version of the sermon~ if I have any errors in my fast version of it, please forgive me, I'm still new at this!) Esther was Jewish, and after the king, (I can't remember who the king was) had got rid of his other wife because she wouldn't dance for the people and show them how beautiful she was, the king went looking for a new wife, his people found several women for him, Esther being one of them, and she found favor with the king, and so he married her. But Esther had a secret, she didn't tell the King she was Jewish. So there was this other dude who was close to the king and he decided that all the Jews should be killed (I don't remember if the pastor said why he wanted to kill the Jews or not) And Esther's people came to her and said you have to go to the king . . . well, back in those days, she could not just go to the king, even though he was her husband, if you went to the king without being called for you were killed. So she prayed and fasted and told her people to do the same, she was afraid to go before the king, she didn't want to be killed . . . but she realized that she couldn't just sit back and watch her people being killed when there was a way for her to potentially stop it . . . so she put her life at risk for the good of her people. Potentially she could die, but she could also find away to save her people.

That's pretty much all we learned . . . and we still don't know what happened to Esther . . . I guess we learn that next week . . . Part of me wants to read ahead and see what happened to Esther, but I don't know if I will or not.

This was a good church, and the service was very bible driven . . . He wanted you to follow along in the bible . . . and I liked that. We will see what the real pastor preaches like . . . I guess then we will know if this is a good Church for us.

We really enjoyed the church and sermon . . . I haven't talked with Jessie about it yet, but if we like it next week are we going to continue to look or are we going to stop and just continue on with this Church? I don't know. This is not something I will decide on my own . . . Jessie and I will decide it together . . . I think that's important, we both want to be happy at the Church we choose.

Oh here is something special that happened at this church . . .

. . . at one point in the service, the pastor called for "Prayer Partners" and all these people came out and stood all around the sanctuary . . . and the choir was singing, and they invited people to come and pray with the prayer partners . . . As I saw people getting up and leaving their seats and going and standing with someone and praying with them, I got all misty eyed . . . I was very moved by this . . . I had to blink and blink and blink to keep the tear from falling down my face . . . part of me wanted to go down and pray with a "prayer partner" about my grief . . . but I just couldn't do it, I'm still so afraid that I will start to weep and never stop . . . But it was very moving for me to watch . . . to see people put themselves out there, to reach out to someone else and allow them in to their hurts and pains . . . For me, this is the reason why I have been searching for a church . . . the reason I have been wanting to step closer to God, I need someone to help me carry the burden of my grief . . . this pain is too much for me to hold on to all by myself. (Any of my friends who are reading this, who have been with me for this last year of grief and pain, please don't think that I am not appreciative of your care and love . . . and you have helped me so much with the pain of loosing Thomas, just by being here and caring for me and loving me, but this hurt, this loss is bigger than me, bigger than me and you put together . . . I think this is one of those times where I really need to turn the hurt over to God.)

So this is my journey thus far . . . it's been interesting, this was week 4, and each time we go to a new church, it feels more and more comfortable . . . more and more like we have the potential of belonging. I like that.

People suck!!!!!!!

I guess I should clarify that statement . . . not ALL people suck . . . just the people who go in the middle of the night and break in to stores (namely my store) and steal $20 in change! But cost me probably $600 for a new glass in my front door!




The police called us at about midnight and we got there and had to do the whole police thing and then deal with the clean up of the glass and then sit around and wait and wait and wait for the guy to come and board up the store . . . it was horrible.

It was a long night . . . it was horrible . . . I felt very violated . . .

What gives someone the right to go in to MY store and break MY door and steal MY money . . . they didn't work for it . . . they didn't create things that people would want to buy . . . they didn't go there every day and pray and hope for customers . . .

They were just wrong . . . they are bad people and they SUCK~