In the spring of 2006 we took a ballroom dancing class along
with our son, his fiancée and two friends of ours. It was really fun. But in the middle of the semester, our son
died suddenly. It was and still is very difficult. We decided that
although it would be hard, we would continue with the class. It was bittersweet
because he and his fiancée' should have been there and they weren't, but our minds
were distracted when we danced so we were able to enjoy it. It was something we've
always wanted to do. So Benjamin, our dancing will forever be dedicated to you
and what you might have become!
Another thing I did in Benjamin's honor was to
redesign one of my gardens to be an Asian style garden. Benjamin loved
anything Japanese. I know nothing about Asian gardens, but I did some reading
and began to work on this project right after he died. Hannah bought a
Japanese flowering cherry tree and my friends at Piney Run Park bought us a
Japanese Black Pine. I was surprised at how many plants I already had in the
garden were appropriate for an Asian garden. Here are some recent pictures
taken of this garden, which is a work in progress.
In fall of 2006, Ken and I joined a prayer ministry
training class and throughout the winter and into the spring we went to these
classes weekly. Toward the end we began to practice with one another. During one
of these sessions I received a significant healing in relationship to the loss
of my son. In October I testified in front of my church that this healing has
held. I wanted to expose the people at church to this form of ministry and ask
for volunteers so we could practice, at the same time as testifying of my
healing. If you would be interested in hearing this testimony, you can
download the PODCAST
here. My new favorite book is The Shack, by William P. Young:
Check it out!
When I'm at home, I
use the computer a lot, as I said. I taught myself a lot of what I know and had
help from a friend when I couldn't figure out things out myself. I got
my first computer, a Gateway DX2-50, in 1994. I had never used a computer before
that, except to find books in the library. I started by learning to use MS
Works, which had an interactive tutorial with it. Soon I was doing a lot of
creative things with MS Works and MS Publisher and then MS FrontPage, among
other programs.
After that I began
to learn about the inside workings of the computer. The first thing I actually
did myself was replace a modem. The inside of the computer is a lot harder for
me than the outside, so even though I know enough to get by, I am not doing that
sort of thing so much anymore. I am still actively using the different
programs and learning new things, though. I have built several WebPages over the years.
Some of them are posted online and some of them aren't. Here's a list of some of
the pages
that I have built, for you to see, if you're interested.