Living & Loving, Autism & Deafness
Our Journey with our loved ones and our lives
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Summer Picture Gallery 2024
Winter Picture Gallery 2024
This year I have 5 picture pages and a special link — Papa’s Homegoing area and pictures (2 links), Winter ’24 pictures, Spring ’24 pictures, Summer ’24 pictures, and Fall-end of year ’24 pictures. Please click and check them all out, and have a peaceful 2025! Letter follows the picture pages.
Please read the link above, The Tree, as it has way more to say about our Papa. Also click the link to the left for more pictures of the homegoing services and a few of papa (more to be added), that now includes a private video of him singing an old song from his childhood as we visited him this fall.
Unusual it is for me to link to many of my past posts, or even get to do a post beyond the yearly newsletter, but this event probably most affected all of us out of everything that happened this year. “Papa” Chuck Humphries, Roger’s dad, passed away in October of 2024. He had an illness that started in perhaps April and continued on through most of the rest of the year. We all had some good times with him after that and fellowshipped and tried to prepare for what was coming. The tree event above in the link was rather awe-inspiring in its reflection of an afterlife, and the thoughts of it have continued into Lisa giving us a reflective tree suncatcher that is now hanging in our office. His memory lives on in our hearts, and we know we will see him again one day.
January brought Roger and Lisa’s birthday party with a fun dinner at Fiji Buffet. The 60th birthday decoration remains ready for my birthday coming up! Having Papa there was great.
Later January was often filled with trying to help Ryan get restored with his health, as he had a severe double ear infection after COVID that had him struggling and then more constipation issues after. We ended up keeping him out of activities for about 6 weeks and kept getting x-rays and may have also had to repeat antibiotics for the ear, and he gradually got better.
February brought us a much needed haircut. Roger’s had been a while, but mine had been ancient, with my last haircut being November of 20, after growing out since abou November of 19, and then growing out from 2020 to 2024! I planned after that to get my hair cut every 3-6 months but of course I did not do that, and it is pretty long again.
On our birthday (Ryan’s and mine) we went to a visitation at his new workshop while he was on his six week break. He got to observe the sign langauge class and had fun participating! A month later we were able to have our birthday party at the condo, the last time we were all there together with Papa. Additionally, March 4, 2024 was Ryan’s first day at his workshop. On my dad’s birthday!
Later in March we also got to use our truck to pick up a couch, love seat and other furniture with papa, and he really enjoyed our new truck! The couch eventually went to the boys’ condo.
Also in March we had a wonderful birthday party for me and Ryan, and another sweet family gathering as my mom and Papa were both able to join us and Mama and Aunt Lisa. Colleen was not able to make it to this one, and we missed her…
Autumn Picture Gallery 2024
Continue reading “Autumn to end of year picture gallery 2024”
“It takes a noble man to plant a seed for a tree that will some day give shade to people he may never meet.”
– D. Elton Trueblood
There is more to this article at the link. And it resonates with me as a teacher. However, I looked up trees in the connection of someone having a vision of a tree that he was looking for, found, and then passed away into heaven. This happened to our Papa last Sunday October 6, 2024.
Roger’s story:
“Lisa and I and my mom were visiting him on Friday, a couple days before he had passed. And he told us he was looking for a tree, then he could go home. Lisa and Mom and I were confused by this and didn’t know what this meant. And he told just us, the immediate members of the family present in the room. He told each of us individually about this tree. Sunday, the day he passed on, not long before he died, he said to my mom, who was the only one there that day, “I found the tree, and I am going home.” And it was only five minutes later that he passed on. That is why I wanted to plant a tree in his name, because this will be Papa’s tree here on earth.”
Roger is getting a tree in his name. And thememorial tree site will plant it where it is most needed.
And papa’s tree will give shade to those who seek it.
Roger and Dorene Humphries
A fun thing this year, still in process here and there — I had to tweak my old web page coding some, and did get a lot of these showing up again! Old Christmas Newsletters early 2000s! You should be able to see a lot of 2000 – 2005 at this point. There still may be some dead links but I plan to look at them the next few weeks…
THIS is my “snail mail” newsletter – copied below. Written by approx. 12/20/2023.
As we still are on the earth, doing our duties and being with our loved ones, we still see illnesses, and just like last year we see COVID going up again, and also flu and other illnesses. All our prayers to all!!! Last year our family had COVID in various times: Roger’s parents had right at Christmas ‘22 and then Roger, Chris and I had mid January ’23. March of 23 Norovirus got just my mom, me and Roger! We managed to stay healthy then for a while!
You can click on each picture to see bigger. Captions are on the picture when you mouse over (computer) or hold your finger on VERY bottom on the caption on phone or tablet…. Click on Read More tag to see the pictures.
Ephiphany! https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/42565054
This is all from friend Karen’s postings on fb and her blog….. Love it! 🎄🌲👩🏽🍼👣
Merry (first day of) Christmas!
There is a misconception that the twelve days of Christmas are those days that lead up to December 25. Not true! Today, Christmas Day, is the first day of Christmas! The 12 days go through the Feast of the Epiphany, also known as “Twelfth Day.”
In the olden, golden days, the twelve days of Christmas were a period of joyful prayer and a rest from unnecessary labor. Christmas tree lights would be lit and families would gather around the manger to share prayers and carols.
The pear tree signifies the wood of the manger, and also that of the cross. The fruit reminds us of the reason for the Incarnation: God’s desire to saves us from the sin introduced by Adam and Eve consuming the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of good and evil. The fruit is also a reminder of the Tree of Life in the midges of the Garden.
https://www.crazycatladymews.com/category/christmas/12-days-of-christmas/
Keep reading under the cut for the rest of the days!
Continue reading “Ephiphany & 12 days… from my friend Karen!”