Let’s try this again

The season is here.  Thanksgiving is three days away and Christmas around the corner.  And I am not sure I am ready for all of this.

This season has not been so good to the Wike clan in recent years.  In 2014, I had to head home on the Monday before Thanksgiving due to the death of my uncle, Bob Wike (Dad’s only brother).  Uncle Bob had become a great link to Dad’s life as a young man and I really appreciated the times we would sit and talk when he visited Dad.  He was a miracle in himself, one of the first kidney transplants at MUSC over 40 years ago.  I miss him.

Then, of course, there is last year.  Almost every day now I think about where we were this time last year, and what happened on that day.  It was surreal.  There are times when I still cannot believe it all unfolded the way it did.

Dad lost his father (and my grandfather) Clarence Wike in July of 1966.  I was almost a year old, so I never really knew him.  Dad told me years later that a day didn’t go by that he didn’t think about his dad and miss him.  I had no idea how true all of that is.  I still dream about them.  Occasionally I remember that I haven’t called them yet for the day.  Then it hits …

Now, here I am preparing for the Thanksgiving worship at Ebenezer (which I haven’t been able to attend since 2013)… All I can think about is how this will be the first Thanksgiving and Christmas without them.

So, I’m going to try this again.  Hoping I will be able to worship with my EBC family tomorrow evening, and again on Sunday.  And missing Mom and Dad.  And thankful they lived lives that were worth missing.