Who says life's boring?

Fatherless - Yet not Alone

A year. A whole year! My siblings and I have been fatherless a year. My dear mother has been a widow for a year.

I can’t even explain to myself how I feel. My heart seems to go into fibrillation when I think about the incident or see pictures. I feel kind of nervous, and an incredible depth of sadness. And the strangest feeling is the one of disbelief. I still can’t fathom the fact that my father is dead. I can’t believe that my mom is a widow. How did this happen? When did this happen? Whose story am I reading? It can’t be mine.

I am trying to keep everything under control. I have a job to do, and I want to do it properly. Here I sit at my test bench, surrounded by coworkers, bravely plugging on through my daily routine. But it somehow seems so unimportant. I am randomly gripped by an overwhelming grief, and I start to cry. But I have to keep it under control. Professional. So I just breath heavily.

I am so grateful for the  support from everyone around me. My friends, my family, my coworkers; all have rallied around us to let us know: we are not alone. I keenly miss my father, one of the best and godliest men I have ever known. No one can replace that earthly position he filled in our lives. But we have a heavenly Father, one who will never leave us nor forsake us. He is the One who gives me peace and joy through my grief. He is the one who helps me keep going when all I want to do is give up.

Thank you to everyone who has allowed God to show love through you. Thank you for serving and comforting and being a shoulder to cry on. Thank you, thank you, thank you, from the bottom of my heart.

I love you guys. Because of you, I know I’m not alone.

One Year Ago

A year ago right now I was sitting in the hospital with my family, surrounded by friends, hurting, hoping, waiting, wondering, scared, sad, while my poor father lay on his hospital bed, still, silent, broken, struggling to stay in this world. Less than 12 hours before we were just beginning a new day, assuming it would be like any other. We had no idea that the events of December 14, 2010 would change all of our lives forever, and would take the life of a dear wonderful father, husband, friend.

I don’t know what else to write. I love you, Dad!

Did You Google It First?

Being a computer geek, I often get asked to fix people’s computer problems. I am a nice guy, and like to people’s problems (including interrelationship issues…), but I don’t always know the answer off the top of my head. Imagine this scenario:

Amy comes to me and says, ‘Hey, Allen, Word doesn’t work any more. It used to be when I started up the program, I could type and it would look like _____, but now it looks like ____”

“OK,” I reply, “let me take a look.” I search through the menus, and often find some setting somewhere that was accidentally changed.

And then sometimes I can’t actually find out how to fix it my looking through the menus.  I hop on over to my favorite search engine and type in my problem. More often than not, I can find the answer. I go back to Word and fix the settings properly.

And you know what? Amy is very grateful! She goes back to writing her Word documents, and next time she has a problem… I get another call. This happens to computer geeks around the world.

What people don’t seem to realize is that I’m not a guru, master of all computer programs. No, I often don’t even know the answer to the question they are asking me! I simply search for the answer.

And it’s not that I don’t like fixing people’s computers for them, it’s just that the answer is already out there, and it’s something they could do themselves! So, to all you people out there who have very nice friends who will fix your computer out there, there is one simple question I would like to ask you, that may relieve some of your geek friend’s burden.

“Did you Google it first?”