Why can't we forgive & forget?

This last Saturday was my father's 90th birthday. For months I tried to plan it and tried my hardest to get my hard headed brothers & sisters & their families together. Well everything seemed to be falling into place. On the 24th of May, the day of the birthday gathering we got some weather. We got some badly needed rain which ended up raining on our parade, so to speak. My one brother wanted to wait it out. My one sister wanted to move it to her house, which was the location of our party if it got rained out. Well, an arguement ensued and needless to say my sister moved the party to her house. My brother was furious and refused to show up at the house. Now I can see both their points of view, but considering I was the one who planned it, I feel it should have been my call to move it. If I had been the one to give the call to move it to my sister's house my brother might have been shown up. Now everyone thought he was childist to act the way he did, but I understand the point he was making.

Now this isn't an isolated incident. My family has been at odds for as long as I can remember. Like many families out there, ours is no exception, we fight and bicker amongst ourselves and stab each other in the back any chance we can. Being the youngest, a lot of this happened before my time or when I was young, so I don't know all the details to everything. There is a split in our family. They choose up sides everytime there is a disagreement. My mother was the glue that held us together. She put everyone in their place. After he death, my Dad loosely held it together, but as he aged he grew tired of trying and became very impressable in his old age as his memory faded. Now once my Dad is gone, I'm quite sure there will be little to no contact amongst the brothers & sisters & their families. I myself have even made the comment in anger that once Dad is gone they are all dead to me.

What I need to do is pray for peace. It is sad to see common blood could be so unfeeling towards one another, but it was learned from my Dad's and Mom's sides of the family. There was no love loss between my aunts and uncles on both sides. So I guess it is par for the course. So I guess it's up to me to pray about it, ask God's help and try to change things before it is too late. I guess Why can't we forgive and forget?

Tyson, our companion....

Here are some pics of Tyson...








It was a sad day for us yesterday 5/1/08. We brought our 11 year old Golden Retriever, Tyson, to the vet because he was limping. We thought that maybe he broke a bone in his foot or something simple....the vet first did a normal check on him and thought he felt something by his bladder...we took him out to pee and came back in. The vet then did a floroscopy on him to get "real" time pictures of his back and internal organs. His spine is like 80% shot...major spondylosis--spinal degeneration and deformity of the joints. The vet said it was unbelievable that he was still walking. Then he came to the area by his bladder....it wasn't a full bladder that he was feeling....it was a mass about the size of a softball. Dave & I were in shock. We couldn't believe that our "big lug" was really sick. The vet is saying that he probably has 4-8 months left with us. I guess we will take it 1 day at a time.





Tyson was supposed to be Dave's hunting buddy...well, that never happened...he was afraid of the gun. He is majorly afraid of storms too. I think what freaked him out was when he got caught in the major hail storm here is Mandan. He is worse than the kids when it comes to a thunderstorm.





We will certainly miss him when he is gone and now plan to give him the best that we can give him.