To All Of My Kids: Wherever They Are

Father's Day is scheduled each year for the third Sunday in June.  It tends to fall between the 15th and the 20th.  My birthday is the 25th.  My daughter Rachael was hit by car June 18th 2008.  She was 12 years old and about about 1 month from her 13th birthday.  She was in a coma for 2 weeks and died July 2, 2008.  For the first about 4-5 years since then, Father's Day, my birthday, and Independence Day had little joy.  But then, something happened.  Her brothers and sisters, and my wife went out of their way to try and make those days (F-Day and birthday) extra special.  They succeeded.  This year is no exception.  I have been tremendously blessed and have had some terrific days.  What is more is that the new additions to our family (DIL's and SIL's) have gone out of their ways to enhance the blessings too. Yes I still miss our Rachael, and I still suffer grief at this time, but because of them, the days are no longer dark but are happy events. So this is a post, because they too have deeply grieved the loss of their sister, to thank them and say how much I love them and appreciate them for all they do and have done. 

I love you my kiddos, my kiddos-in-law, and my wife.  Thank you for helping me to celebrate again.

Comments

  1. RandyJune 21, 2019 at 8:04 AM

    You're an amazing man of God, thank you for your honesty, transparency, words of wisdom, and your heartfelt love of our Father in Heaven. Blessings to you and your family!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Where Is The Love?

Matt 7:3“Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? Recently, I have read some FB posts about the problems of the modern church.  My friend Ben Jensen wrote an excellent rebuttal to one of them and I will refrain from re-iterating it here.  Please take the time and read his statement in his blog Dear Church: People Will Always Leave You at  http://lifeunstained.blogspot.com/     Read it. It is worth your time. It is easy to go about ranting on what is wrong with the church.  We, who are the church, are fallen, imperfect, etc.  So there is a lot of material available.  Possibly a 1,000+ volume encyclopedia on me alone and I am just 1 of millions. I understand admonishments and exhortations are needed from time-to-time.  And yes discipline needs to be exercised as well.  But we need to be so careful that we do not overstep our authority and find ourselves in dir...
Read more

This Man Knows His History...

Image
Ever come face-to-face with your own history? Today I did.  I had the blessing and humbling honor to meet the man who was responsible for my life and the lives of my family.  Today I met Matthew Duffy, formally, Sgt. Matt Duffy. Sgt Duffy served in the U.S. Army during WWII. Why is he responsible for my family's lives?  Come with me on this incredible tale and find out.  My father, Gottfried Kligmann and his brother Samuel Kligmann were imprisoned in Dachau concentration camp after their half brother turned them in.  They were scheduled to be executed when the US Army arrived an hour ahead of schedule.  Sgt Duffy was one of the soldiers who arrived at that time. Here is a snippet of his story which he related to me today. His battalion, the 2nd Ranger battalion, was attached to the 101st,, airborn battalion but he was with the ground troops.  They were to make a coordinated ground/paratrooper strike on a target. The airborn soldiers were behind schedule and the ground troops wer...
Read more

Do you Hope with expectation?

 I have been re-reading the book of Romans in the Holy Bible. There is a word that occurs 14 times that God has brought to my attention.  The word is "hope."  When God, through His Holy Spirit brings a word to my attention, I research it.  Like all Bible scholars, and wannabes (me), I went to the Greek. The word used for hope, in the Greek, is "elpida, elpidi," et.al.  This word is also translated as expected or expectation. So I contemplated (picture me in an Alistair Cooke setting, LOL) the application of the word hope.  Hope can be anything from hoping for an A on a test, a Lamborghini, a kiss, a healing, a new job, etc. But hope, as the apostle Paul meant in his epistles, was that of expectation.  Not just the hope of a maybe, but the expectation of a promise to be fulfilled.  A hope that requires faith. Faith that says not just something to which we look forward, but a trust and belief that allows you to EXPECT that it will be fulfilled....
Read more