I Still Believe in Miracles

Yes I do, I really do still believe…Miracles can happen! What a very odd title you may be thinking. Well, probably not if you are among the kind readers who know this part of the twinship of Gabby and Autumn. I’m the Gabby part of the twins, I am perhaps the quirky one with posts having some very unusual titles from time to time.. Autumn is the weaver of magic, love and just awesome poetry.Oops, I have to interrupt myself with a newsflash from Autumn… That Twinnie insists I label her as quirky, too! Well, she insisted so nicely, there you have it!

I digress so easily, and no Autumn doesn’t do it as nearly as often as I do. Back to the miracle thing, I still believe in miracles even after all that life has handed me so far. A few miracles I was hoping and praying for weren’t meant to be, but I can honestly say I still believe and that’s a positive thing.

The kind readers who know this story already, I will make this short as not to be a bit of a bore. Evil cancer, in the form of Multiple Myeloma hit both my husband Dave and our Dad. The same exact cancer, the Multiple Myeloma Foundation said it was a first of this sort of thing. They died 40 days apart, was I wanting and praying for a miracle for both of them? Of course I was, along with tons of family and friends, etc. Did it shake my faith, did I turn my back on God? NO, that’s all as strong as ever and with the Divine Order of things, it was all meant to be and I don’t question these things. They each had their small miracles, Dad and Dave both lived longer than doctors predicted and they both bounced back from several horrible setbacks. It sounds strange, but yes, they were miracles. I survived the horrendous grief from the loss of them both, I stayed sane. So did our Mom, our family, that is also a miracle.

I looked out my window on this lovely spring day and saw the miracle of sun shining brightly, birds chirping among my trees. It had been raining and dreary the last few days and Wow! Just an all around beautiful sight, I look for simple things as my miracles and blessings. I will keep looking for miracles, I have already been a witness to several of them. How about all of you kind readers, do you look for miracles? I hope so, they are all over the place…Just look closely, very closely! Even the smallest, tiniest thing can turn out to be a miracle for you, keep believing I say and never stop looking…You don’t want to miss it! 🙂

Time is Marching On… ~By Gabby Angel

We are so close to the New Year, time to say goodbye to 2011. A few short days and we will be saying hello to 2012…Time really does march on. Whether we are ready for it or not, you can’t slow down, go back or change time. It has me thinking of one thing as the New Year is so close to being ushered on in. First, I am pondering the whole subject of New Year’s resolutions…Why does anyone make them? Does anyone ever keep them?

Some people really do make a resolution, then get sad and discouraged when they don’t or can’t keep it. Well, you know what I am saying, right? Perhaps there really are some people who have the discipline to keep a resolution. You know the usual ones like lose weight, eat heathy, quit a bad habit, etc. Some people set goals, which is a good thing. The problem is some of these may become impossible to keep, for one reason or another.

I personally haven’t made a New Year’s resolution since 1999…What was it you ask? My husband Dave had been diagnosed with bone marrow cancer, Multiple Myeloma almost 7 months to day of January 1st. So my resolution (and his, too) was to look forward to the approaching bone marrow transplant, which would buy Dave some more time. That we would make 1999 and the years that followed really count. Dave had finished the chemotherapy, we were both very hopeful and things looked good. So we resolved to make 1999 a new start, and live each and every day the best, the happiest and to really mean something. Not take anything for granted, each other (not that we ever did) or any of our loved ones. We did silly things, fun things, things that would make good memories and I am not kidding…We lived and loved, our way through each passing day. It stayed pretty much that way, well until Dave lost the battle on May 30th of 2003. I won’t go into the details, they aren’t the issue and I don’t want to make this sad. I have written about Dave in other posts, so if you are interested you can read those.

The point that I am making, the 1999 New Year’s resolution was good and we kept rolling with that one. That was the most important New Year’s resolution of my life and I don’t choose to make another one. Nothing else will ever be that earthshattering or life changing, at least not to me. There is nothing else in the big picture for me that is cause for a New Year’s resolution. That’s me, we all are very different. It just put things into a prospective for me personally. If you choose to make your own New’s Year’s resolution, go for it I say. These are my own thoughts only and my own personal ponderings about New Year’s resolutions.

I am curious though, who really is making a New Year’s resolution? If so, please do feel free to share. Also maybe if you would like, share your own thoughts or ponderings about the whole New Year’s resolution thing. I have asked Autumn, she isn’t making one. As we agreed, all we can say is…We will keep being the happiest and best we can be!

A Picture and the Memories… ~BY Gabby Angel

I was looking at one of my favorite pictures of my husband Dave last night. Any of you kind readers following my twin sister Autumn’s and my blog are aware, I lost Dave to cancer. He’s been gone over 8 years now, I miss him like crazy every day. About this picture, it’s of Dave smiling as he was singing and playing his acoustic guitar. He kept singing, as I snapped that particular picture.

I remember the evening he was singing this song to me so very well. I can close my eyes and conjure up the memories so easily, I feel am quite fortunate that way. The song, Joe Cocker‘s “You are So Beautiful to Me“, a beautiful song, a beautiful memory.

Dave sang so many, many times and so many, many songs to me…I miss that so very much. Recordings I have of him singing are wonderful, but not quite the same. Looking at this picture of Dave last night just made me cry, kept me crying for quite the spell. I finally got a grip, and finally stopped…It was because I could almost hear his voice. That’s how well connected we were, I could almost hear him saying….Please don’t cry sweetheart, I am always with you. He is of course, because he promised he would be…As often as Heaven allowed anyway.

I got to remembering so many things about Dave and me, our time together and our first meeting when we were 16 years old. He came roaring into my life in a mustang. That’s a long story that I will save for another time. I got to remembering silly and happy times throughout our years together.

One of my favorite memories was the proposal night. Others were just odds and ends of other thoughts and memories. I have to share the night he proposed. Very romantic it was, Dave really did propose to me on bended knee. After the beautiful wildflowers (they are my favorite) and the candlelight dinner, which he had made by the way. Dave had learned to cook at a pretty young age, so it really was a lovely dinner.

That man had already won my heart right from the beginning, just as he said I had won his.Dave and I were blessed in many ways, I keep trying to remember this fact. Some days or nights are just more difficult than others. Next to this picture of Dave on my wall, I have a set of his drumsticks hanging. I took them down and held them, that was comforting to me. It made me smile, he loved playing his drums and I pictured an early memory. Dave was in one of his first bands. He was rocking it out, behind those set of drums and singing his heart out. These are the times I want to remember…Dave and his music. I fell asleep listening to him singing ( a recording of course)…I had very happy dreams.

My Husband Dave…His Memory Lives On~Written by Gabby

Memories

Autumn has encouraged me to write this and share the story of my husband Dave. So I am taking her advice and writing about my wonderful husband. This has needed writing for quite some time, honestly. Dave’s memory will live on, I will make sure it does. Dave has so very much been on my mind, more than the usual I mean.

About my husband, Dave was and will forever be my soulmate. My sweet Dave, and my once in a lifetime love. Sadly, I lost him to cancer eight years ago on May 30th of this year. To me it seems more like eight minutes ago most of the time . They say time heals, but I’m sorry they are wrong because it doesn’t.

Does anyone have the perfect love story? Probably not, because none of us as human being are perfect. I would just have to say ours was as perfect as it gets … For me, anyway.

The Diagnosis

Dave was diagnosed with Multiple Myeloma (bone marrow cancer) on June 3rd of 1998, the day that started changing my entire world forever. If anyone is following the blogs here, then you may heard Autumn and I speaking about our Dad, also who passed away from Multiple Myeloma. It’s not a made up story, it’s real…They passed away exactly 40 days apart from this same evil cancer. Dad being the 40 days after Dave. I also miss my Dad every day of my life, this cancer robbed me of the two most important men in my life. I don’t think Dad would mind if I center the rest of this post on Dave, he is no doubt giving me a thumbs up as I write.

Dave

Well, Dave was so incredibly strong and a very special man in so many ways. He walked into my life when we were both rather young, and he never left. Dave was an educator, a carpenter, a musician…All in one package. His sense of humor was amazing, we laughed quite a lot and often.We brought out the very best in each other, we were just simply meant to be. The musical part of him, well that was just plain magic… A real God given talent.

Dave had a wonderful voice… He so often sang to me, sometimes I would fall asleep to the sound of his voice. He played drums, guitar and piano. While in bands he was always the drummer, he just was outstanding.

We both shared this love of music so very much. Dave also was the bringer of surprises, sometimes wild flowers, chocolate and other assorted things…Just because. We didn’t limit our gifts to each other for only birthdays (which were only 5 days apart) and holidays. He used to joke about being very old people and still having a blast and rocking it out. Also, he had conjured up a story of how we could exit this life in the same instant. That way neither of us would ever suffer without the other one, we were just too joined that way. Too bad that story didn’t go as planned.

Dave was a romantic, to the very core. To the outside world he just appeared a very happy guy who loved his wife and was clearly loved in return. Dave called me his angel, well I thought he was mine. He had such a gift for making every day we shared an adventure, he really did. One of the last memories of us while Dave was still healthy…Romping around a large amusement park. It was so much fun, we acted like young kids and just lived that day to the fullest. I’m sure we also made tons of people look twice, wondering who were these two crazy people? Racing from ride to ride and laughing loud and long. So many, many memories and that is my blessing because most of them are happy.

Love that transcends time

When he was diagnosed, we joined forces to beat this evil beast and kept fighting hard. Yet, we lost. And I continue going on… because I promised Dave I would. I am not saying it’s easy, I would clearly be lying if I said that. In speaking with Dave’s cousin Emily, she said something quite profound. Her words to me “You and Dave just had and still have such a love, it transcends time.” I think she’s right, we had pure magic together and so much love.

Each and every day is a challenge, but time goes by very quickly and I will meet up with Dave on the other side. For those of you blessed to have found love, hold on tightly and treat it kindly, please.

Oh, I almost forgot…If you see a star shining very brightly in the sky? Well, that would be Dave.

It is Love Not Reason… BY Gabrielle Angel

That is Stronger Than Death. It’s a quote by Thomas Mann. It says a lot that quote, it became one of my favorites about 8 years ago. “It is Love Not Reason That is Stronger Than Death”.

I really wasn’t going out of my way to be morbid, honestly I wasn’t. That isn’t what this quote means to me anyway. Actually my twin sister, Autumn the “Queen of Quotes” (she really is) came across this one. Where and why, because she had this quote fall right into her lap so to speak, and because she wanted me to have a quote that made sense. You know my own quote that worked for me somehow.

That was a rough time for me 8 years ago, losing my husband Dave to that evil and dreaded enemy cancer. I wrote a blog a month ago or so about Dave, it’s good to get those emotions out. The devastation of his death, I wasn’t coping at all well with it, I really wasn’t. It was all a blurry scene for me, first Dave taken by multiple myeloma, then Dad 40 days later of the same cancer. Just kind of beginning to grieve for my husband and then Dad was gone, I thank God I stayed sane. Although there were many times I wondered, was I really? I feel I mostly drifted through, being kind of lost and doing things by automatic reflex, you know what I’m saying?

Talking helped so much, I was blessed with so many people all around me. The family and of course Autumn and also Craig were truly wonderful, friends and other relatives. I talked a lot, I cried a lot. Being such a walking wreck, nothing seemed real. My thought is how can you be anything else when your heart is broken? It was during this hazy time, the sense of unreality still rolling when Dad and Mom went to a doctor’s appointment.The next thing we knew Dad was admitted to the hospital. He, like Dave was experiencing hepatatic failure. (That’s liver failure in case not everyone knows that medical term).Double whammy nightmare…I knew the ending well.

Lots of praying and ever so grateful for my strong faith, I got through it. So did Mom, Autumn, our sisters and the tons relatives and friends. This is just really not meant to be a sad and gloomy blog, really it isn’t.

I think the story and the reality I am writing is the strength we all possess deep inside. The love we have and the belief that Dad and Dave are in Heaven. We will be catching up with them there on the other side, they are happy and well now, no more pain. They both want us to be happy, too. As best we can anyway, know what I mean? Sadly Craig has joined them, but they are watching and cheering us on.

Try and make something good out of this time we all have left on this earth is the message. I just know it is possible to still laugh, still partcipate in life. It doesn’t mean any of us will be picking out another mate necessarily. Speaking for myself, I know I won’t be and that is the divine order of things I do believe. Mom…Well, very, very highly unlikely. Autumn, perhaps? Only time will tell on this one.The three of us are different, after all. It certainly doesn’t mean she loved Craig any less.

The quote Autumn had given me applied to Dave and my never ending love for him. It still goes on and maybe in a sense Mom and Autumn share the quote now, too. Loving our men and knowing they will be waiting, right there in Heaven. They are alive in our thoughts, minds and our hearts and we have them popping into our dreams every so often for those visits. A lot of wonderful memories, too. It’s a good quote, I like it and it works for me.