This coming week may be a tough one for me.
I've been asked to help my step-mom, Dinah, go through Dad's things.  Even though I've known this task would need to be done, I was waiting until Dinah was ready before mentioning or offering to be involved.
Dad had a zillion t-shirts.  We all gave him Roughrider gear, goofy Father's Day shirts and most recently, Duck Dynasty paraphernalia!  He also had acquired ball caps from all sorts of businesses, companies and sports teams.  Usually the wife takes up most of a closet (or more than one closet) for her wardrobe.  But not in this case. Dad was worse than a girl!
He also had clothes from various stages of his life.  Mostly jeans and t-shirts.  But for the evenings at the Curling Club, he would wear dress pants and a nicer shirt or sweater.
He had three suits.
His clothes came in various sizes.  He would gain weight in the winter with eating too much rink canteen food!  Then in summer, he'd be walking miles back and forth in the club doing odd jobs and managing the rental groups. He would lose weight. When he and Dinah retired almost six years ago, Dinah tried all kinds of new recipes and all of Dad's old favourites, so he needed a new size or two to fit around his growing belly!
In the last year, Dad had thinned down some.  He wasn't as hungry; neither was he as active.  I guess in retrospect, we should have known his health was declining but that's not important now.
On the weekend, the family will have supper together and plan the memorial service for Dad.  This is another thing we knew we had lots of time to plan and organize but now that time has come.  With tears, laughter and hopefully some healing, we will find a way to express our love and memories.  We want to honour Dad, who loved to have fun and enjoyed people.  He was a sports nut, a card player and loved old tractors.
I know I'll make it through this week, and the next...and the ones to follow.  Saying good-bye will be hard but Dad knew I loved him and I got lots of chances to tell him that in the months he spent in the hospital.  Those months were a gift.  And now these days, weeks, months will also be gifts because God gives them to us to live and to enjoy.
That's what I plan to do.