I ran across a really simple shawl pattern yesterday morning. After looking through my stash of beautiful yarns, I selected a simple single twist cotton/rayon blend in rich jewel tones called “Fire Opal”. Such a yarn needs a simple, straightforward pattern because the variations in color and texture are what makes it interesting on its own. I got up a couple of hours early and Mr. FixIt slept in, so I had my coffee and watched the fog slowly dissipate as I began working the yarn on my needles.

Other than keeping track of right and wrong sides and adding stitches every other row, there really isn’t much to this particular pattern. It’s something I can knit while Mr. FixIt watches his shows. Around mid-day, he went out to empty the bed of his truck. He purchased a fire pit kit in town on Tuesday and he needed to unload it. We’ve decided to buy a Solo Stove to set in the fire ring. They don’t put off an inordinate amount of heat, but they do keep the smoke down with a patented afterburner effect. I love a fire…but not the smoke…and I like to sleep with the windows open at night. I can’t stand to smell a stinky fire while I’m trying to sleep, so hopefully this will be a proper compromise.

We have been watching the weather reports and it looks like we may get a sizable snow Friday night through Saturday. The wind chill could get down to -15°…NOT my idea of a good time. And just in time for the beginning of Daylight Savings Time. There have been studies that show an increase in heart attacks in the three days after the beginning of Daylight Savings time. You can read an article HERE. It has to do with an interruption in the circadian rhythms. Mr. Virgo died on the second day after the time change. If you don’t think I have an eagle eye out on Mr. FixIt surrounding the time change, you’ve got another think comin’. I’m hyper-vigilant…poor man. If I could wrap him in bubble wrap, I would do it. So, please be careful out there.

I called a dear friend of mine yesterday. I met Kathy in church…she was my small group leader. Kathy is one of those friends who you can go to for spiritual advice and I always value her counsel. I told her about losing my friend, Diane in December. I still feel the ache of her absence in my life, but one of the deepest feelings I’ve been dealing with is guilt. I feel that somehow, I should have been able to go get Diane and get her to a hospital when she was so sick. However, ever since Mr. Virgo’s heart attack and watching them do CPR on him for what seemed like forever…I don’t handle emergencies particularly well. When Diane got so sick, I was having massive panic attacks. I wanted her to get help. I encouraged her every time I chatted with her to get to a hospital and get fluids, but she was adamant…she was NOT going. I’m not sure why. But, when she died and I hadn’t even tried to go get her, I was wracked with guilt.

I shared this with Kathy and she stopped me mid-sentence. 

“Ginny…that is the enemy talking to you. He’s whispering in your ear and telling you…if you were just stronger…if you’d just gone over to her house…if you weren’t so weak…you might have saved her! He’s telling you that you weren’t a very good friend.” She’s absolutely right, of course. That’s what the enemy does…he tries to use your own thoughts to destroy you. I was a very good friend. I encouraged Diane to seek help, to call her son…to at least call the doctor. I wasn’t the only one who tried to warn her. As my doctor explained to me when I shared my grief with her….

“People make decision about what they’re going to do and what they’re NOT going to do. And sometimes, those decisions don’t have a good ending.” I am healing, but it’s still hard sometimes. Add to that the events of the last two years…between the pandemic, the election, the insurrection, the great and terrible losses, and now this terrible war in Ukraine…and frankly, my heart hurts.

I thought I might go out to the farm for a couple of days this weekend, but we are expecting that snow and I don’t need to be over there where the power could go out and I’d be stuck there without Mr. FixIt. I’ll just stay here and honor Mr. Virgo in some way from the comfort of home.

March 11th was a Monday. Mr. Virgo was so tired. He dressed in his Philadelphia Eagles sweats and stretched out on the sofa after breakfast…snoozing to the soft monotony of the Golf Channel. I was upstairs working in my studio. I came down at lunch and peeked over the back of the sofa. Mr. Virgo was on his back, his mouth gaped open in the depths of a nap. As I stood there watching him, I heard a voice standing right next to me.

“This is what he’ll look like when he’s dead.”

I nearly jumped out of my skin. I honestly thought someone was standing in the room right beside me, but there was no one there. In retrospect, I think God had been preparing me for a week for the upcoming disaster. But, at the time, I was properly freaked out. My gasp woke him up and he smiled up at me. 

“Hey, baby doll….what’s for lunch?”

If only he’d known what I saw. If only I’d told him. If I’d just insisted he follow the doctor’s advice four months before and had that cardiac work up. As with my friend Diane…it seemed as though I was watching events unfold but I had no control over them. I don’t believe I could have changed the coming events with either one of them. It seems like a movie I was destined to watch unfold but couldn’t stop.

?

““For the Lord God does nothing without revealing his secret to his servants the prophets. The lion has roared; who will not fear? The Lord God has spoken; who can but prophesy?””

Amos 3:7-8 ESV