Tamara Henion Photography

June 8, 2014.  For a couple of weeks it looked like Mom was having a bad reaction from an overdoes of pain meds-it was text book ‘too much’ followed by the same ‘withdrawal’, but it wasn’t that. Visits and phone calls were leading me to realize something was wrong.  After a few hours in the ER that Sunday, it hit me that something was really wrong-and we were soon t to find out just how wrong it was.  There’s a lot to this story, and it’s still unfolding day and night by day and night whether we want it to or not, and though I do want to share it with you, I don’t want to tonight.  Since that day in the ER 3 weeks ago, it seems to have been one loooooooong day, but tonight’s story is a little off track of Mom and all her brain tumor has-very sadly and unwillingly- enlightened us to.

Dad was born today 76 years ago: June 29, 1938.  Gram died this same date– what seems like yesterday but has been years. Even before this year, this news, this tumor, June 29th was a bittersweet date on our family calendar…I was just praying we’d make it through it with no more to add than Happy Birthday, Dad.  Today a meal was delivered to Mom and Dad’s house. This is something that others have been doing for a week now.  In and out the door they will come as they drop off wonderful meals to sustain my beloved parents in this time of need. It’s always easier to be the giver than the receiver, but as it turns out, my mom does both with the utmost graciousness. In fact, she’s a blessing to all who are meeting her in her cancer journey already. I’m not surprised…and neither are you if you know her.   I was holding up to the window some old x-rays when a little purple jeep pulled in the driveway. Soon, my husband led the sweet woman in the front door and to the kitchen.  No one knew her. She dropped off a hot homemade dinner of salmon, steamed veggies and pound cake with mixed fruit (yummy).  Somewhere in the mix she shared that she doesn’t cook much at all, yet here she stood in Mom’s kitchen (where she’s spent the better part of her life sharing her own love of baking and cooking with all she knows) delivering a meal.

“Is that your mom in the car with you?” my husband asks.  And then we heard her story.   That jeep was on its way to the Peaks of Otter where a cemetery held residence of her late sister who died, not too long ago, from cancer.  She and her siblings were getting through these tough months in a different way and with more steps forward than her mom was able to manage. So it was another trip to the cemetery for her in hopes that her mom could somehow find enough strength to make it through a few more weeks without her daughter.  Until she pulled away and my husband used the wall behind him as a bit of a brace, I didn’t know she loved rescuing dogs (we LOVE our dogs), or that she was looking for a new place to live, or that she didn’t even know my parents.

Money wasn’t flowing freely through her hands.  Cooking isn’t one of her passions.   Her schedule wasn’t empty.  She had no steadfast friendship to foster with Mom or Dad.

She just signed up and showed up.  I don’t even know why, but I’m sure glad she did.   This is how great our God is…he sends angels right to our front door.  Thank you, Lord.

Thank you to today’s special angel.

I hope you didn’t get rained on at the cemetery today.

I pray you get the return blessing 100 fold.

Psalm 42:8
By day the LORD directs his love, at night his song is with me– a prayer to the God of my life.