burst forth into rejoicing

Nothing makes you think more about life - real life - than death. My Opa passed away this week, which has made me do a lot of thinking and brought forth a very mixed bag of emotions.

But one emotion surfaced quite unexpectedly for me. Anger.

I accepted his cancer diagnosis perhaps too easily, understanding that there was nothing they could do to treat it. Maybe it was the palliative nursing course I took only 10 months earlier, having no idea that theory would need to be put into practice so personally, so quickly. But I was not accepting it so easily today.

When I first saw my Opa in the open casket at the viewing yesterday, I was surprised at my initial response. I was mad. "That is not Opa!" was my first thought, which I whispered to my brother. I know, they never really look like how they looked when they were alive no matter how good the funeral home is. But that's not what I mean. I just couldn't believe it was him. Yes, I had seen him recently, watched as the disease destroyed his body in the past few months. But now he looked like any of the little old men that I would care for in the hospital, with the hollow face, bony cheeks, thin shoulders and oversized glasses.

Cancer had done this to him and it pissed me off. Opa was never a small, frail man. Cancer had sucked the life out of him. He was not bony, his glasses not too big (In fact, they were always too tight on his head. What had happened?). This man lying here, weighing literally half as much as he did last summer, was not my Opa, and I hated Cancer for doing this.

My anger was soon lost in the confusion of other emotions, which you can quite well imagine and I won't go into right now. But then today it resurfaced at the graveside. Once again, so mad that Cancer could come in so unexpectedly and destroy this wonderful life. How dare it. This was not Opa. But then it hit me. It WASN'T Opa. Yes, I had long realized that Opa was now in Heaven, this just being his earthly body left behind, but suddenly I knew what that meant. HE was gone. His soul, his very self, had escaped and left behind this shriveled shell.

I had to smile. I even had to laugh (inwardly). For Cancer and Death thought they had won, but in fact they did quite the opposite. They allowed Opa to be released from the confines of his earthly body. Cancer tried to crush him, Death, to destroy him. But my Opa is walking - running! - in heaven with his Creator, free from any walker or hospital bed that had just recently become the "normal" for this otherwise-healthy man. My anger dissolved into such joy.... How great it is to know that Jesus promises a fantastic Forever with Him, if we want it. And Opa was experiencing the gloriousness of it right now. That stirs up a longing in my heart. Despite, and because of, the evilness of Cancer, Opa was able to burst forth into rejoicing in the presence of his Maker.

If you're dreamin... about California.....

The other day we got back from....

Here's just a teeny glimpse of the fun we had. If you want to see the other 130 pictures, we'd love to show them to you some other time. We spent the majority of the time at Disneyland and California Adventure- sooooo much fun!! When I say the "majority" I mean that we got on the first shuttle in the morning and only left on the last or second last shuttle of the night. On our last day of our trip we spent 16.5 hours in The Happiest Place on Earth.




We made some new friends....


...went on a whole lot of amazingly fun rides....

...and had fantastic light shows every night.


One day we went to Pirate's Dinner Adventure, which boasts that it's the world's more interactive dinner theatre. Each section of the audience had a pirate to cheer for. It was super good, with lights, acrobats, sound effects, really good food and a gigantic pirate ship as the "stage". Oh and it was a musical!
this is us with Andre, our pirate.

We went to the Crystal Cathedral on Sunday morning. Yes, that's the pastor up at the front. Yes, that's a giant pipe organ, with more pipes in each wing and behind us. Yes, the walls are made of glass. And yes, there were fountains in the centre isle that would go off during climatic parts of the hymns.

We spent a glorious day at Huntington Beach, getting tossed about by the waves, watching surfers and getting a little bit sunburned.

We had a blast. And yes, it is definitely worth going to Disneyland without children. Even more so, we think, as had to endure other people's whiny kids waiting in line.

more excitement?

we just got back yesterday from a fantastic camping excursion at falcon lake. and i found out today that after my term position (which i will be working in the fall), i have a permanent position waiting for me!! yeah! no job interview, just a handing in of the little ol' resume. oh yeah, and a 3-month practicum of free labour which i am SO done. so i'll be leisuring through august with R and then starting my career as a grad nurse in september. i'll be working a 0.6, but with the current staff shortages, i have a feeling i'll be picking up a lot of shifts. i write the RN exam at the beginning of october and then i have a 0.8 position starting at the end of october! crazy crazy.