Jewells of Thought

In less than 48 hours three of our loved ones will be on my High School grounds for Funerals and Celebration of Lives. A week prior to this we lost Uncle Dick and just a few days ago another Dugger family lost a daughter. Plus a current Dugger student lost his life days after Uncle Dick died.

The Dugger Community has been hard this past month.

Our family has been hit hard this month by the deaths of my Great-Great Uncle, a distant cousin, my Grandma Rosie’s 2nd cousin I believe. Now my Mom’s first cousin and his wife in the last couple of years we have spent more time at their house visiting Aunt Helen and seeing whoever was around from time to time.

How on earth do you prepare for such times in life?

I know the answer from the Biblical perspective. Know that you know for certain you will be meeting Christ when you wake up from death. There is also the Great Commission from Matthew where Christ tells us to go out and spread the gospel to everyone. Fortunately, Kenny had a best friend who was a Preacher and he will be doing the funeral on Saturday for him and Devona. It’s been so hard to fathom the past week. It seemed so natural for Uncle Dick’s death; he was ailing so badly and he was ready. He said so himself the night of his birthday.

However, I was not prepared for Tracy’s death. Mindy I didn’t know as well. Her Mom and Aunt though, family knows fairly well from Dugger. I do remember her though from McDonald’s she was dependable and always had a smile on her face. I couldn’t believe the obituary said she worked there for 25 years while also finishing a couple different degrees. She was a hard worker and had more substance than could be seen from behind the McDonald’s counter.

Uncle Dick’s last Swan Reunion Last October

These people are more than names on a page of paper. They were real people with real stories and layers that had to be known personally to know the individual. Kenny and Uncle Dick had strong personalities though and will be sorely missed in the Swan and Ming families. In my branch of the family too. I may be a couple of generations from Uncle Dick, but Grandma Rosie and Grandpa Freddy kept us together so we would spend time throughout our generations in the family. I really miss that togetherness we had back then. That’s why we have clung to Aunt Helen since Grandma’s death to keep that connection going and to see Selena get to know her cousins as well. She and Piper are so similar in many ways that wouldn’t have been possible if we hadn’t kept lines of communication going after some of the bigger deaths in the family.

Love means staying connected with loved ones. Exerting time and energy to being the person they need in their life too. Family is so precious and adequate time is not always given to us to spend with them. Take advantage of your loved ones and spend as much time with them as you can. Generational wisdom is so much needed right now to hand down to these younger kids. That seems ironic for me to say, I still consider myself to be younger and yet my age suggests different. My generation didn’t have all the technology that my niece now has, I didn’t even have my first cell phone until I graduated high school.

Now we are heading back to my Alma mater for funerals. Most of us attended and graduated from UHS, of course it’s not the same school anymore. It’s now a charter and Grace College is the sponsor. Talk about all the emotions from high school years and add on the emotional turmoil of two senseless deaths. This Saturday will be quite a day is all I can say. Hopefully God-willing the Lord will be with all the mourners and maybe someone could be saved from the shock of these deaths. That would be the only viable silver lining of this horrible situation that took place just last Saturday.