46

No one really knows this but age 46 really gets to me - like wakes me up out of a dead sleep gets to me. I will wake up and look around my room with the moon shining in through my windows with my husband asleep next to me and I'll think about my dad. At 46 my dad was single, working like a crazy person and sadly wasn't the best father and probably numbed a lot of his physical and mental pain with alcohol but no one knew an aggressive brain tumor was literally growing inside his head.  Sure there were signs but I was too young to know what those signs meant.  Did my dad know? Did he awake at night, alone, in a panic because he knew something was wrong with him? I'm 46 and my dad has been gone for 2 years and I think of him nearly every night now, in the dead of night when everything is still and perhaps a little scary.  I can say that at age 46 I've lived through a pandemic, my country being totally turned upside down from riots to the economy but thus far I haven't had a health crises besides my P.E. a few years ago which would have killed me instantly anyway so there was never a question I would endure any suffering, but once my dad knew he had this brain tumor he surely knew he would suffer. He was newly divorced and his relationship with his children was broken. He surely was petrified. Age 46 was also not kind to my mother. She was diagnosed with diabetes and her twenty three year journey with that disease hasn't been easy or fair. She now lives in a body that is broken. The older I get the more I see this earthly life is simply a stop on our way to our forever home.  Knowing my parents love Jesus is probably the only thing that gets me through some days and helps ease my "middle of the night panic attacks."  I know that my dad is finally home, walking and talking and is the dad I can remember from my childhood.  It's just as I said at his funeral.  I know when I arrive in heaven he'll be waiting for me with arms wide open and a voice I can understand saying, "Welcome daughter, I've been waiting for you."  It helps me to know I can and will get through age 46 - even if the Sh** hits the fan.  I'll be okay.  I've seen both my parents suffer at age 46 and beyond but through all the suffering we have the hope of what Jesus did on the cross. I've thought so many times that surely there is more than this earthly life and there is!