A Tribute Larry - Thanking God for you!

Yesterday I got the kind of call you don't want to get.  One of my childhood "Father" figures passed away after battling liver cancer.  


It's all kind of surreal as several people I love are battling cancer and I'm not sure how to manage it all in my heart and brain so tonight I am sad...but I am choosing to celebrate a man whom I loved and looked up to as a little girl.  Below is a paragraph from something I've been writing from time to time.  

"Here in Lincoln Nebraska,  I grew up being the little white girl in a neighborhood of many cultures, ethnically, and economically.  My mom worked a lot to pay the bills so my "second home" in the neighborhood was the Rodriguez family that lived two doors down the street.  As the story goes...I was 4 years old the day we moved into our new house and that day I "walked to Rodriguez's house in my mamma's high heel shoes and never went home".  Their house is where I learned about Mexican culture.  I grew up eating homemade tortillas every day and prided myself on being a part of their family… especially in the summer when my skin would get extra tan and I looked even more like them!  Their home is also where I learned that I had a hole in my heart that only Jesus could fill.  I love the Rodriguez family for taking me in, making me a part of their family and caring for me."

Our family moved out of that neighborhood when I was in 8th Grade.  While time has gone on and we have grown apart I cherish the childhood memories I have shared with them and I honor them for what they have taught me.    


So today I thank God for Larry and his life.  I sit in awe at how fast time has flown by - Thirty years has come and gone... It seems like just yesterday we were planting that tree in your front yard, holding baby Gina Marie, testing out the hot salsa on Friday nights and eating deer jerky from that deer you hung in the garage for days!  I remember you helping us carve pumpkins, pull out my teeth and watching a ton of baseball together.


I guess the beautiful thing about time passing quickly is that there will be a time, not too far away, when there will be no more tears, no more pain, no more death...  when we will be reunited with Christ in the clouds and all will be fully well again.  What a day that will be!