Yesterday as Dale and I were driving to dad’s house, (that is weird), we saw flowering trees. The thought came to me was that it was time for our dogwood tree to bloom. All of sudden I thought, I’ll call my mom and then I remembered my mom is not alive. Now, who do I call about my tree. You see when we lived in New York, I called her about the first snow and when we moved to Virginia, I called when the daffodils were blooming, My mother loved dogwood trees. When we interviewed in Martinsville the first thing I told my mom was that I had one in my yard.

I found out I am not the only sibling in my family that has lost someone to talked to . My sister Barb has lost her best friend. They talked about everything. My bother would call my mom when he had someone saved in his ministry.

I talk to my father, when we talk about ministry and church work. I also talk to him about things that are going on in the kid’s lives, but there are certain things like dogwood trees and daffodil’s and first snows – that I always talked about with my mom – and I will miss that.