When adventures come to an end a legacy is left

This past Saturday the Ruckel family lost a wonderful man, C. wWalter Ruckel, jr., at the age of 85. Although he is gone, his legacy of family, generosity & activity in a community he loved will remain implanted in the hearts of those he left behind. We are honored to now be raising our family in this town he obviously loved & cared for.

we've been remembering & celebrating papa walt this week. we've had beautiful services held in his honor & got to share lots of stories of this man, the legend that he is. the church was literally standing room only and i'd say that, in & of itself, shows the mutual love & respect between this man and this town.

click picture for his obituary 

and what i've learned from his life: 

may we all have the zeal to live life to its fullest & make the choice to adventure whenever possible. 

click picture for article & more pictures on his funeral services 

trailblazing adventures

after going through several personal trials during high school/ college, i realized that the way the Lord wanted to use me was as an trailblazer, an encouragement to those who followed the path behind me. and i wanted all the personal pain i suffered to not be for nothing...i wanted to help & share my experiences so that others didn't have to go through life alone. i asked the Lord to bring people into my life that were about to walk down the same road that i had just been down. i wanted to be able to encourage them in the Lord, be a testimony of God's faithfulness & promises that He never leaves us. and i have. i have always had someone to share with directly after i've walked through the dark, shadowy valley of death. and in the particular instance of my health/ cancer scare last month, i literally was walking in the valley of death. and while i do not feel like i've cleared it or escaped it, i have been on a hill basking in the life-giving sunshine. what i didn't expect was someone to have someone follow me down that path & into that same valley so quickly. 

"But after I am raised up, I, your Shepherd, will go ahead of you..."

matthew 26:32 

 

the end of 2011 was full of crazy health issues in our family. first {matt} got crazy sick, the boys all got nasty sick, then there's me. and well, then came {grammie} my mom...

she finally decided to go to the doctor to figure out why she was experiencing shortness of breath...while just sitting sometimes. they ran a slue of tests, including CT & PET scans. the tests turned up empty on answers for the shortness of breath, so they called it asthma. but they did find something on her scans...spots, masses, lisions, call em what ya want but in the end they are things that should not be there! a few spots on her lung and even one on the kidney. my entire family was caught completely off guard. for 1 thing, she never smoked regularly...or even at all. and 2, she can't drink a glass of anything sort of alcohol without getting giddy-she's a lightweight-so a closet alcoholic she is not. and 3...i was the one who had just been told & untold i had cancer.

long story short, they are indeed calling these spots cancer. mainly because non-cancerous masses would not take the dye for the PET or CT scan like these did. she underwent surgery last week to remove the spots on her lung. all went according to plan. although they did find a few smaller spots, once they got in there, that did not show up on the scans. that meant a longer incision, a longer surgery time, a longer recovery time. the doctor said it was all stage 1 cancer and they got it all....meaning no need/talk of follow-up radiation therapy. she did lose 20% of her lung capacity. which means keeping up with my boys will be a little harder, but the snuggles from them will be even sweeter.  

as for the kidney spots, the plan is to get those taken out in march or april. but i think that will depend on how she recovers from this surgery. so prayers & thoughts of a speedy recovery and fullness of health are more than appreciated...they are coveted!

i'm never sure why i walk through trials before someone else does, i just know that is how the Lord uses me. and i don't think i'll ever figure out his schedule...especially with this scenario. but whatever buffer or encouragement i was able to serve for my mom, i'd do it again in a heart beat. but this time there's a sweetness of knowing i get to do this adventure along side my mom. 

all that being said, i'm off to visit a doctor here. turns out i didn't end up being able to get the MRI biopsy done the day we left virginia. that was a blessing in disguise! {matt}s grandmother recommended a great local breast specialist. so we'll head off to see her today. i will try to update things here on the blog when we hear anything. i know that people are checking in on me via this sweet place of mine here on the interwebs. 

so please, come on back for info. or comment with questions for me or about my mom. and if you're incredibly shocked at this cause i haven't told many people at all, then shoot me an email: kristiruckel [at] gmail [dot] com. so thankful for this community i've found here!

single parent sundays :: fresh fall air

bed hogs slept in the middle of my bed all week

when {matt} was sick a few weeks back, i said it would be better to have a sick kid than a sick spouse. well turns out i got my wish...we all minus {ben} & including my parents got the stomach bug last week. karma just kicked my butt! it was terrible. not as bad as when we got it back in march, but still bad. my mom drove up the day i got sick. and my dad dropped by during the weekend...and they still got it. it's the kinda bug that lingers even after you aren't feeling sick. the worst! so we stayed home. inside. for days! did i mention i'm currently in a 2 bedroom condo?! cabin fever is an understatement.

{grammie} & {matty}

on sunday we were all feeling pretty much back to normal, but knowing that my parents had just gotten sick, we didn't want to chance taking this nasty bug onto church. so we stayed home. sure that meant no rushing to get out the door in time or arguments over outfits, but i was still doing it by myself. nothing had changed. the monotony of the week was digging in deep under my skin. thankfully, sunday brought beautiful fall weather here in southeastern virginia & i knew that if i didn't get out of the house we would all pay for it. i dressed my grumpy self & my grumpy tribe of boys and off we went to explore the great outdoors. ok, maybe not so much explore, but a walk to the park.

not sure why, but i feel like they look a lot like me here.

{gabe} wanted a ride back

 and getting out just once just wasn't enough, so we went for another walk later that afternoon. {auntie kate} came to the rescue again and took the little guys & i took the big ones. i tried to make them sit on this bench and act like they loved each other. this is the look i get from {gabe}. ha! shoulda known, we were all still a little on the grumpy side.

and turns out, that both {sam} & {matty} were cutting molars too. no wonder i feel like my hearing has been compromised.  i mean, there's a lot of crying that happens in this house normally we warn all those who dare to enter the door! but put sick AND teething buddies....yeah we reached a whole new level. 

thankfully the majority of us are on the up & up. {matty}s gums are still getting torn to pieces and he is more than sufficiently reminding us of this, but the bug has passed and we are enjoying the 80 degree weather. 

so last week was full of plenty of things to be grumpy about but like i said before, i'm trying to be thankful for something every day...even if it seems that there's nothing but baby puke filling it. and since all the days last week just got jumbled into one, i'll just be generally thankful. that's good enough right?!

• a husband who literally gets his hands dirty to help out at home
• that {ben} made it through without so much as a sneeze
• my husband that takes the day off to watch the kids & take care of me
• that same husband can get more done on his day off at home than i usually can 
• for parents who come to help...and get sick in return but wouldn't have it any other way
• for new windows to open & air out the house
• this amazingly gorgeous fall weather
• the colorful leaves that make looking out my window a little more enjoyable
• checking BIG things of a to-do list
• watching that to-do list get shorter & shorter

A few people I'm thankful for :: day 3

{nana roo} & her special birthday...ok so I meant to add that to yesterday's post. as I was typing realized the notes I had been keeping had been deleted by a certain 2 yr old who can't keep his hands off my phone.

{nana roo} & {papa steve}
photo by: tom graham

to know that a dear friend is back home in the states (she & family have been in in thailand for 1.5 yrs) and recovering from jetlag. happy heart!

{tess} with a brand new {gabe}

Listening to Christmas music while cleaning. Love the nostalgia & joy it brings. Especially when listening to this...



Remember my friend {abbie}, this is her big brudda, Matt Wertz. I spent many a Christmas seasons in their cozy house. *sigh* and yes, I'm suddenly filled with childhood nostalgia again...see its just that good! he's working hard at pursuing his dream, so show him some support. GO GET IT!

Which also makes me thankful for Abbie & all these years when laughed & cried through life together. Gah! If only texas weren't so far away!! Kiss that sweet niño for me.

{abbie} & her son {wes-a-wee}, {bethany} &
me and my boys

New books to read at bedtime. Nothing like the rhythmic sound of a new book to slow down the pace before bed.

gift cards that had been put away & forgotten about to help buy a few groceries while money was low. major blessing!!

- Posted from my iPhone