5 to Life

Hi Dad, It’s me.

Today marks 5 years since you died. It’s so hard to believe it’s been that long since I have hugged you, seen your smile. heard you funny jokes. But here we are. So much has changed in my life, and in the world, since you left. I wonder what you think of it all when you look down and see? I am sure you laugh at all the silly things I do. But I hope you are proud of the life I created since you and Mom left.

I am happy and have created a wonderful life full of love and amazing people. I wish you could meet them, one in particular.

Today is a day I will try to celebrate instead of being sad. I miss you so much, but will celebrate that you are with Mom and that is always only where you wanted to be, with Mom, the love of you life. I will celebrate that you are with the Lord, to whom you prayed and faithfully worshipped. I will celebrate all that you taught me. I will celebrate our wonderful memories, of which there are many. I will celebrate that I had such a wonderful father, who loved me enough to last my entire lifetime. And when tears run down my cheek today, I will remind myself to celebrate that my father and I loved each other enough for me to miss him when he is gone.

But most of all Dad, I will celebrate you, and your life. Love you so much, and miss you always. Hug Mom for me. And please visit me in my dreams.

Christmas to You

Hi Mom and Dad,

It’s me. And it’s Christmas. A time of year that is for those of us who have lost loved ones. Oh, and I do miss you so much that my heart aches. But I have to tell you something – I am happy. Blissfully, wonderfully, ridiculously happy. For the first time in many years. Happy like I was I my early 20’s, carefree and loved. I wish you could see my smile, and hear it in my voice. But maybe you can as you watch over me.

Even with this happy, wonderful life, I still miss you. No matter how long it has been, no matter how happy I am, I will never stop missing you guys. There ar still so many times I have thought, “I have tell call and tell Mom about this or that…” Even after this many years. I suppose I’ll always want to pick up the phone and call you.

And it’s Christmas Eve, and in my new life, there is so much love and happiness. So many people to see, and love, and gifts to wrap and wonderful to experience. And yet, I still think back to our Christmas Eves, when all of us gathered at your house, wrapping and laughing and living and drinking wine, and sneaking things into each others Christmas stockings. And how to integrate some of our traditions into my life with this family now.

And all of your recipes and cooking and reading your book. And so much love. The amount of love you raised us with is truly amazing. But I guess that originated from your faith in God and your love for each other.

I just wanted to let you know that I am happy this year. In the new house, with my wonderful man, making this life together. But I will always love and miss you guys. And I love when you visit my in my dreams. And I really love when we get a chance to hug in those dreams. No matter how long you live, there can never be enough hugs.

This is what you always wanted for me. I am here. And I hope that you can see me. I hope that you still send me signs, hope that you keep watching over us. And I hope you are proud of me. Because the older I get, the more proud I am of the two of you, and all that you did, and were, and taught me.

Merry Christmas Mom and Dad. I will love you forever and miss you always.

Hi Guys

Hi Guys,

Mom and Dad, I love and miss you so much, more than words can say.

I have been doing everything to take care of the estate.  We had buyers for the compound then two weeks before closing hurricane Michael cam e through.  It didn’t destroy the place (thanks to your incredible design and insistence that it be build beyond code Dad), but it did sustain damage.  Contractors are working on it. I have no idea what I am doing, but think I have navigated it pretty well.  I hope you are proud, and I hope I have done things up to your incredible standards. Thank you for teaching me such integrity.

When I go there now, I see glimpses of you and Dad, but I don’t feel you there anymore. I think you guys are off dancing somewhere else in the universe, happy to be together. And I think you come back to visit when I am there, but you do not stay. After all, there must be so much to do in the afterlife. And I am sure that you are the social butterfly you always were, Mom, Making friends and laughing where ever you go  And Dad, I know you are just happy to be with her, warmed by the light of her. So many people have and are helping me because of how much they loved you guys.

In a way I wonder if the hurricane was when you guys decided to leave the compound, use it as your exit. Mom, the gardens you made were destroyed, but most of the fruit trees made it. I guess in a way this makes it (emotionally) easier to sell, which is a blessing in it’s own way.

The family is a mess, if you can say it even exists at all.  I have tried to put the siblings back together, but some things cannot be unbroken. And so I accept that I am alone.  The cousins have been wonderful though, even though I have not had time to talk to them much.  But they are very loving and kind.  They are my last connection to you Dad and I want to keep those relationships going.  I plan to see them all this coming year.

Mom, I cannot believe it has been almost 2.5 years since you passed away. I don;t know how I have done all of this without you.  Accept I know you and God have been guiding me. I feel you so close sometimes, that I almost feel like I could reach out and touch you.  But I can’t. I wish you would visit me more in my dreams. And I love when you and Dad give me signs, like the rainbow yesterday.

As hard as it will be to finally sell the compound, I am looking forward to the closure.  You guys know how hard this has all been and how long it has taken to handle everything.  It is time for that closure and for me to live my life, finally free. I am planning where to go and what to do after it all settles down.  I am thinking of what I want life to be for me. I am not sure what it all looks like yet, but there is time.

The holidays (I think) will be easier this year than last.  Last year was rough. But that first year always is. I am ready for it now. And I am taking a friends advice…I am not making it about family, but about love and friendships and laughter and making good memories. I will be with friends who, I am learning, are our family of choice. I wonder if you ever spent a Christmas alone like I did last year, Mom. And I wonder was it hard for your too?  But this year is different.

I used to hate the idea of time passing without you guys. I still hate it, but I cannot change it, so instead I am learning to embrace it more.  I look forward to not being able to say “My Dad died last year.” Because it means that I am moving forward like I know you would want me to. Like I know that I have to. I know that the best way to honor you, and to honor God, is to find all the Joy that life can hold.  And I will.  I will make this life spectacular. All the while, never forgetting that it is your blood that flows through my veins, my beautiful, beautiful parents.

I am going to decorate for Christmas like crazy this year. Two Christmas trees and ALL of the decorations. I will sit and be warm in the glow of everything Christmas and feel close to you both. I will not only embrace the holidays, I will choose to flourish and be  love. And if I don’t have family around, then I will make my own world with all of my friends I love and who love me the most. Life can never be the same, but I can choose to make a life where I am happy and loved.  If we write our own lives, then I can do that. If I don’t feel like I fit in or belong, then I will create my own world where I do.

I still listen to your voicemails, and they make me smile. I never want to forget the sound of your voices. Please keep watching over me and guiding me. And I hope that I make you proud. I have tried very hard to have Grace, but still be tough when needed. It can be a hard balance sometimes. Somehow both of you mastered it, and I hope to one day as well.

I hope you guys are happy where ever you are. And I often wonder, when I look at the moon, if you see it too from your view? Or are you magnificent stars, seeing the moon for yourself? Do you get to see the world, like you always wanted, traveling a new wavelength we cannot yet understand here on Earth? If so, I bet it is spectacular. Or, are you angels, helping just like you did here, just in a different way?

Know that I love you so very much, more than words can say. I honestly don;t know if I love you or miss you more? I carry you with me always. ee cummings said it best. Love you guys, always.

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in

my heart)i am never without it(anywhere

i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done

by only me is your doing,my darling)

                                                      i fear

no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want

no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)

and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant

and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows

(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud

and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows

higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)

and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

 

 

 

Hi Dad, it’s Me

I found one of your cards today, one of the ones you left for me to find. Somehow, I always find them right when I need them. I guess you are just magic like that.

Your 1st year anniversary is coming up soon. I know it will be a hard day. There are so many difficult memories this month.

I didn’t know how I was going to make it after you passed. I knew I would, just didn’t know how. Or when. Those were some dark and sad days. And I was feeling mighty low.

You never get over losing your parents, but I think you would be proud of the progress I have made. It has been a long time. And so much hard work. I hope that you would be proud.

I miss you. I miss your voice. I miss you hugs. I miss eating boiled peanuts with you. And I miss you sharing your thoughts on what mattered. I miss your laugh and your one-line zingers and your quiet sense of humor.

I love you so much. Thank you for the card today.

The Phases of Christmas

There are different phases of grief, it is a process. And this year, this Christmas is a big milestone as far as that process goes.  The first holidays without loved ones are especially hard.  This entry is very raw and very vulnerable.  Honestly it makes me a bit uncomfortable, but if you are going to be honest and pour your heart out, then do it with purpose.  I am not the first to be here and I will not be the last.This is the end of this year, the end of all the loss and the end of the sadness. So, here it is, for anyone who might be going through the same:

Phase 1
I woke up for the first time in my life to an empty, quiet house on Christmas morning. I’m still not sure how to feel about that. I walked around and my Christmas lights were beautiful, the Christmas tree was beautiful, but it was so quiet. There was no one in the kitchen making breakfast for hungry eyes. There was no one inspecting the gifts under the tree. There was no Christmas music playing, or the sound of quiet conversation and laughter as people who got up early tried to be quiet and considerate of people who were still sleeping.

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How lucky I was and have been, to have had so many wonderful Christmases filled with family. And how many people wake up on Christmas morning alone, like me that morning?

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All the sudden I felt so much love for my mother. Every year from the time she had her first child at 27, until the Christmas right before she passed away when she was 74, she made an amazing home where everyone wanted to come and have Christmas morning. I thought of all the years that I woke up, ready to have breakfast and rip open presents. I thought of when I was a child and my sister and I had the tradition of getting up at 5am to play Monopoly until 6, and then would sneak out to see what was in our stockings, and then gently, carefully put everything back in our stockings. We would go back to play Monopoly again until 7am (when Mom and Dad said we could wake them up).

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And I remember even after I’d grown up and moved away, making sure that I was home for Christmas, driving sometimes on Christmas Eve then wrapping all the gifts when I got in. Most of the time Mom’s gifts had already been wrapped as she would have bought them months earlier. When I was young and broke, I could afford the gifts but not always the wrapping paper and accessories. So I would wait until I got home to raid Mom’s impressive wrapping paper, ribbon and bow collection.

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And wrapping was an art in our family. It wasn’t just wrapping a simple gift, no, it was trying to be mischievous and fool the receiver. A small box would be wrapped and then placed in a larger box and wrapped and placed in another larger box and wrapped again. There would be candy and buttons and things that make noise that would be placed in a box that held a book, so that when the gift with shaken, they would never know that it was just a book.

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For many years I was The unofficial photographer of Christmas morning. When everyone got up and started to unwrap the gifts. it was I who would capture it all. All the wonder, and happiness, and family togetherness, and laughter, and surprise, and delight, and love of Christmas morning.

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I wonder if my wonderful, sweet, brave mother ever spent a Christmas morning alone? If she had ever woken up on Christmas morning to an empty house? She came from a large family and so did Dad, so did she ever have that experience? She was married at 26, had children by 27. And did Dad ever wake up and spend a Christmas Eve or Christmas Day alone? It’s amazing how many questions you think of to ask your parents after they’re gone. Ask them now. I am acutely aware that they are gone. And I miss them so very much.

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I’m blessed to have friends who have become my family with whom to spend Christmas dinner. And even more who have extended wonderful invitations. Life is a balance of appreciating what is gone and accepting and being thankful for what is now.

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Phase 2

As I’m getting ready and going around the house, the memory of Last Christmas Creeps in. I was so sad and depressed… it was awful. I showered my Dad with as many gifts as I could possibly afford, getting him everything from new shoes to funny things for his cell phone, to clothes, to socks to everything I could possibly think of. I was trying desperately to make up for the fact that he was so miserable without Mom. I thought that maybe if I gave him enough gifts that he liked, I could make him smile an forget that he was miserable, if only for a second.

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I buzzed around smiling and being Jolly, but I think he knew. And I remember my ex, who was so completely disinterested, but who tried to pretend anyway. Looking back he was always on his cell phone, now I know it was talking with strippers and prostitutes even then. I lavished him with gifts too, trying to bury the guilt of having involved him in my ordeal of Mom dying and then having to live with my terminally ill father.

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I bought him a huge Craftsman tool box among other expensive things. Looking back I was trying to fill the terrible hold that grief had left inside of me by trying to make those in my life happy.  And trying to make up for the fact that life had imploded with death and being a full time caregiver. I thought that if I could give enough gifts, make enough people smile, try to make enough people happy, then maybe I could forget my grief for just a little while too. It didn’t work.

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And last year, after a delicious Christmas dinner, it was time to take Dad back to the rehab center. I picked him up that morning and had to have him back before midnight that night. It was miserable too because he wanted more than anything to just be home. It was heartbreaking to leave him there Christmas night. And even more heartbreaking to go back exhausted to the empty, loveless house that I called home.

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And that is why I even if I have sad moments now this Christmas, even when I shed tears and miss my parents so very much, I’m incredibly thankful that no Christmas will be as horrible as last year – hands down the worst holidays of my life. It is why I face this Christmas with an open heart and understand that there will be some heartbreak and that’s okay. Because last Christmas was the most heartbreaking Christmas of all, and I’m glad for all the opportunities for joy this year has given me. And I’m thankful for what the next year seems to hold. There’s been a lot of lost this year, but I’m still here. I still have the ability to love and to trust and to believe in people. And that in itself is a huge gift wrapped in a big bow.

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Phase 3

I realized that I had the hang of this. That I could do this. The Yule Log was playing with a pretty fire and Christmas music. The cats were running around with new toys. I heard from many family members and friends exchanging Christmas and holiday wishes. I was feeling lots of love. It still felt really weird and surreal as I looked at pictures of Mom and Dad and thought of Christmas in my childhood.

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Phase 4

Christmas dinner with at a friend’s house. There was rushing around to get everything  done and on the table at the same time.  There were people who loved me and who wanted me there.  And that felt really good.  It hurts to have my parents gone.  But I have found my roots, my family of choice.

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There is validation and vindication at the same time. It feels good to be back, to have made it through this huge emotional time.  It feels good to have it done, because I feared the unknown of the holidays.  I have lost both parents, three siblings, one boyfriend and all of his family in the past 18 months. And now I have gone through the first Christmas without any of them. And I made it. If I made it through the past 18 months, I can make it through anything.

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There is nothing more to dread. No more dates of the unknown, no more huge emotional triggers or timeframes.  New Years will be pretty easy – a celebration of saying goodbye to the bad, and saying hello to the wonderful happiness that is coming. I shed the skin of what has been and step into what will be.

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Then the next moment is the first anniversary for Dad.  But since I have been through it with mom, I know what to expect.  That anniversary won’t be easy, but ti also won’t be the unknown.  I know what I am facing, head on. And I have the love of my friends and that love will build this life strong and good and lasting.

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Phase 5

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I did it. I made it through Christmas without you.

There were some tough and lonely moments, but I am blessed to have amazing friends that got me through. There was also joy and celebration. You guys raised me strong and loved me enough for a lifetime, but it doesn’t make making a life without you any easier. But I will be OK.  I love you Mom and Dad. For so many wonderful things, for so many reasons and for so many wonderful holiday traditions and memories. Most of all, I love you for being the most amazing parents in the whole world. Merry Christmas. Love and miss you always.

James Burch Obituary

James (Jim) Lamar Burch was a man of few words, but was known for his quick wit and one-line zingers. Even more so, he was known for his love of God, his country and his family. Most notably, Jim was known for his love and devotion to Geneva (Genny), his wife of 49 years until her passing in July 2016.

Jim was born September 2, 1936, in Jasper, FL, to James Oswald Burch and Martha Agnes Green. He graduated from the University of Florida in 1959 with a Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering. He also earned an Electrical and Communications certificate from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York.

In 1958, he married Byrne Booth with whom he had three children – Carie Burch Quigley, Pleasant Hill, NY; James Oswald Burch, II, Wilmington, NC; and Boots Burch Quimbey, Bethesda, MD.

From 1959 to 1963 Jim served in the Air Force Reserves and was a certified value engineer in the U.S. Naval Facilities Engineering Command. Jim was employed at the Department of Defense in Washington, D.C., where he worked on the Nike Zues and Atlas projects designing ballistic missiles. He also designed phone systems for The White House.

He later married Genny and they had two daughters, Rita Lynn, Marietta, GA, and Ada Lamar, Dunwoody, GA. Jim and Genny also fostered 63 children.

In 1969, Jim and Genny moved to Ontario, Canada, where he was an electrical controls engineer at the Atomic Energy of Canada.

He also worked for several other companies, including AT&T,  Martin Orlando, Miller Brewing Company and Kun-Young Chiu & Associates. Jim and Genny moved from Wauchula, FL, to Valdosta, GA, in 1985 where they were members of St. Barnabas Episcopal Church. Jim partnered with Ed Locke to start an engineering firm, AEC in 1990.

Jim loved classical music, WWII history, beer, and hot dogs.

In 2001, Jim and Genny moved to Donalsonville, GA where they built their dream home and lived their last years enjoying gardening and fishing. Following Genny’s passing, Jim moved to the Atlanta, GA, metro area where he was cared for by his daughter Ada and a dear family friend Michael Mulé.

On March 1, 2017, Jim reunited with Genny in heaven after succumbing to a long illness.

He is preceded in death by his parents, his brothers Brent, and Billy and his sister Margaret. In addition to his children, he leaves to cherish his life nine grandchildren – Patrick, William, Karl, Coleman, James III, Tyler, Allen, Thomas, and Brian; two great grandchildren, Finely and Bexley; sisters Lena Mae and Nelma, and a host of extended family members and friends.

A memorial service will be held Saturday,  March 11 at 1:pm at St Barnabas church, 3565 Bemiss Rd, Valdosta, GA 31605. Celebration of life will immediately follow at Park Place, 2215 N Patterson Street, Valdosta, GA.