*****Season's Greetings***************Christmas 2009******
Well, 2009 has gone by fast, hasn't it? Like many people, I am thankful for many things, including the resurrection of my IRA's value since last year's meltdown. Johnathan, 28, saw his event-filled 10 year career in the Navy come to a close in August and he completed his B.S. in Business Administration with a major in Financial Services (which he paid for primarily through the Navy's tuition assistance program which helped Mernell and me immensely) which made us all proud and he is now working towards his MBA. Johnathan is now testing the waters in this tough job market, already having one job interview with Merrill Lynch. Johnathan's wife, Carissa, is still enjoying her position as an ultrasound technician at a clinic in Seattle and is keeping Johnathan in line and on his toes (which is the mark of a good wife, some women have told me). Holly, 24, is still enjoying life in New York City and still waiting tables but she now has her own apartment (after frequently playing 'revolving door roommates' in which Holly was responsible in paying the entire month's rent). Holly gave us the exciting news that she auditioned for and was accepted by a new dance company, 'The Taste Ladies', which she enjoys being a part of. In April, my mother and I traveled down to Fayetteville, AR for the wedding of my aunt Bea's grandson, Michael, and his bride, Erin. As I told a few at the time, I could not recall seeing a bride more beautiful than the one that Erin was that day. Mother and I stayed at Bea's home and Bea was the perfect hostess for us. Johnathan, Carissa, Holly, Brett, and I saw a Cardinals game in May and it was against those lovable losers, the Chicago Cubs. We saw a tight pitching duel in which Cardinals ace Chris Carpenter prevailed in a 2-1 decision. My brother, Chris, and I have long had the philosophy that if the Cardinals simply make the playoffs, everything else they accomplish is 'gravy'. Well, the Cards did make the playoffs this year but there was scarce little gravy as they were unceremoniously swept by the Dodgers in three games in the first round. After we all enjoyed a great lunch at Mernell's home, my mother and I made it to Brett's high school graduation at North Callaway and he is now a freshman at Fontbonne University in St. Louis and earned a few scholarships, including one for their baseball team. A large contingent made it in for the Woods family reunion this year, including my Aunt Jane, her son, Lance, and Jane's daughter, Susan, with her husband, Dave, & my Aunt Bea, her son, Charles, and his sons, Dan and Christopher. We were deeply saddened that my Aunt Ferne could not make it as her husband, Roland, had recently passed away. I am sure that Ferne will carry with her many fond memories of Roland. My sister, Angela, went out her way to come to Hannibal to spend Thanksgiving with me and treated me to dinner. And then, from the restaurant's chilly parking lot, I treated Angela to watching the space shuttle and the space station flying in close formation directly over Hannibal. 2009 was very noteworthy to me as I turned 55 in June, which would have been my 'normal' retirement age, instead of seeing my 19th year of retirement due to my disability in 1990. The last three months of this year saw major 'doctoring' for me as I suffered from a staph infection in my right arm which required 4 days in the hospital (in 2007, I was in the hospital for 3 days due to staph in my left arm). A followup blood test showed a very high lymphocyte count, which led my family doctor to refer me to a cancer doctor here in Hannibal. After the tests so far, my doctor tells me that I have one or two kinds of leukemia, the seriousness of which is not yet known for certain but it is a very serious illness. I have been receiving the support and well wishes from family and friends and, in addition to thanking God for each day since my heart attack in 2006, as I have been doing for over 20 years now, I continue to place my life in God's Hands. On a sad note, my therapist, Dr. Carl Kruse, who treated me at the local counseling center between 1992-2007, passed away in September. Dr. Kruse quickly finished the task of getting my 'mental feet' firmly back on the ground and, in some subtle ways, he treated my belief system with considerable respect. From early on, I shared with Dr. Kruse details of the deeply religious experience that I had had in 1988-1991. Dr. Kruse then told me about how a few years earlier, his health was so poor that he thought that he was at Death's Door and he said, "Lord, just go ahead and take me." He said that God told him, "No, it's not your time," and God told him there was a project that he was to work on. This 'project' intrigued me greatly and during my 15 years with Dr. Kruse, I brought up this project 2 or 3 times, trying to tease some details about it out of Dr. Kruse, but he always preferred not to talk about it. Very near the end of my sessions with him, I began to wonder if God's 'project' for Dr. Kruse was for him to one day meet and help someone with my particular belief system (that is, someone with a genuine, Scripturally pre-ordained destiny) and when I suggested this as a possibility to Dr. Kruse in one of my last sessions with him, Dr. Kruse simply looked through his glasses down at his desktop for a few seconds, with a slight smile on his face, and was strangely silent with his lack of a verbal response to my suggestion. One story that I have shared with several is a session that I had with Dr. Kruse about 10 years ago in which Dr. Kruse had just come back from a business trip in Washington, D.C. and he shared with me many jokes that he picked up about “Bill and Hillary”. At the end of this session, he filled out prescriptions for my three meds and I noticed that we had talked very little about me. As we walked out of his office to make my next appointment, I asked him, “Dr. Kruse, do you spend your time with your other patients like you do with me and just talk about your personal life?” Dr. Kruse became defensive and replied, “Oh, my other patients aren’t intelligent enough to understand,” which gave me a good laugh. I am convinced that, like a few other individuals, Dr. Kruse is a person that God placed on my life's path at a critical time in my life and he will be missed by many.
We hope that you and your family have a Happy and Prosperous 2010!
Greg, Johnathan, & Holly
My Cliffnotes Blog Page (since 2005): http://www.blogger.com/profile/7227366
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