Kayaking Today

I went kayaking today in Lake Smith in Virginia Beach with some friends today. It was a nice little paddle. Lake Smith is freshwater, so the smells you get are much different than the smells you have on a software marsh or brackish water. Most noticeable to me today was the honeysuckle. It smelled absolutely amazing, and it brought back some very fond memories from my childhood. When I was growing up, grandma and grandpa always had a pond in their back yard. It didn't always have water in it, but sometimes it did. The pond was in the very back of their back yard, and on the far side of the pond was a fence separating grandma and grandpas land from the house behind them. The fence was always grown up with honeysuckle in the spring and summer and I remember running around the pond with my sister and friends when we were kids. We used to pluck the honeysuckle flowers off the vines, pull the stamen out and eat the nectar that came with it. It's a silly little memory, but it is a good memory. I use this to lead into some rather bad news. I received a phone call from my aunt last night telling me that my uncle, Byron, was in intensive care, his liver was shutting down, most of his other organs were shutting down, and they were prolonging his suffering. They decided to remove the respirator, and my uncle died this morning around 1000EDT. The timing was poor, insofar as all of our mental states are concerned (mom died right before Christmas, now her brother died less than 6 months later). But, the lord moves in mysterious ways and he does things on his time, not mine. The one thing that I can be rejoice in is knowing that he is experiencing a greater joy than I can imagine, and he gets to see my mom again, something that I wish I could do, and will be happy when I finally get the chance to.

I don't want to make this a depressing post, hence why I started with something upbeat. But, if you can find it in your schedule and in your heart, please say a prayer for my uncle Byron, and say a prayer for my family.