My head is kind of reeling today. Sometimes things happen that are just so difficult to process. How can someone you love so very much be speaking with you in the grocery store one day, excited about a trip you’re planning together, sitting at your kitchen table reminiscing old times and shared love, laughing and sharing funny stories
...and just days later...
They are gone.
And with them...a part of your heart.
I never had the great honor of knowing my grandparents and since becoming a grandmother myself, I’m especially sad about that. Nobody loves like a grandmother!
But God has a way of filling in the gaps...always!
And for me, it was through my Aunt Peggy.
Peggy was expecting at the same time that my Mama was carrying me. Their babies were due at the same time, in September. But Aunt Peggy had twins and they came early, in July; Deborah and Diana. Diana didn’t survive. Debbie had CP and was mentally handicapped as well.
My Aunt Peggy sorta took me on as her other special daughter.
As a child, I used to go and spend days or weeks at a time at her house in Stevenson. I remember sitting at the piano with her, learning to play those little duets like “Chopsticks” and “Heart and Soul.”
She baked cookies with me and let me walk into town and buy candy at the local drug store.
One of the greatest things she did for me was to encourage the love I already had inborn in me for horses. She had a beautiful horse named “Lady.” I might have begged to go see Aunt Peggy so often purely because it made me so excited to get to see that horse! 🐎
Years later, the love of horses that Aunt Peggy helped instill in me would end up being the best therapy I could ever have had through some of my own darkest days.
I remember having a tummy ache several times when I was at her house and she’d cook me up a “hot tottie” made from Uncle Leon’s whiskey. Worked every. Single. Time. I credit her for the fact that I have never in my life wanted to touch my tongue with liquor unless I absolutely had to! 😝
My Aunt Peggy was funny! Of the six Tcherneshoff children, she was most certainly the most mischievous!
I told her recently that I’d watched her walk on water all her life! She did that because her eyes were fixed on Jesus!
Last night, Jesus took her home. LORD.... I have no doubt whatsoever that if folks ever have to “put their nose on the wall” in heaven, she and my Mama are already there! 😂😂
I’m so thrilled that Peggy is seeing the LORD that she loves with all her heart!
I’m thankful that she’s seeing her Debbie and Diana... WHOLE! 🙌🏻🙌🏻💝💝 😭😭😭
I’m thankful that she’s getting a chance to get to know her daddy, who died before she ever really knew him.
I’m thankful for the part that she played in making me who I am.
I’m thankful that I got to feed her some homemade chicken and dumplings, one of her favorite meals, and tell her all the things I’ve just told you before she left. I’m thankful that I got to hold her close and kiss her forehead long and fervently and whisper my eternal love for her. I’m thankful that I got to tell her “thank you” while she was alert enough to understand!
I’m so thankful for JESUS and for eternal life given freely to crazy ole sinners who love Him!
Gah... I miss you, Aunt Peggy! You and Mama...
BEHAVE! 😉😇😇
