Awoke early to the sunrise and the realization that this was the day that John and I drove down that driveway filled with so many feelings a year ago and drove to the Cities to board a plane for France! So many feelings... terror and the feeling like how did I ever end up in this unending bad dream... someone wake me up! How could my wonderful 21 year old son have brain cancer? And how could we have come to the point of doing brain surgery and leaving him forever changed to the point that we had just brought him home unable to walk or care for himself two weeks before?
The feelings are so deep and so hard from that point a year ago! It is hard to go back there and remember how hard it was to leave... even that morning I told Pat that we would not go and after the fact that we had to get our tickets refunded... we had all had tickets to go to be with Hallel when she took her habit with the community and changed her name. Then when John got cancer... all of us except Nancy got our tickets refunded, because there was no way we could go! I had paid extra in case this crazy idea did not happen... we could get our money back and our tickets refunded! This whole idea was so sudden and so impossible to believe that it could really happen!
The platform walker... How it wrenches my heart when I see it... yet at this point, it meant independence for John and gave me the crazy thought that we could go to France. The night before we left he had used it to go to the bathroom without help! That meant that he could get into the bathrooms on the trip and accomplish some of the things we take for granted, but would be necessary for him to be able to go to France! One day we were lower than a snake's belly and the next we were on a wild adventure... going to France!
I wept looking at this picture... although fuzzy and poor... probably more because of my tears than anything else... This is the first time that John and Sue saw each other. Yes, she and Nancy knew that we had done this wild and crazy thing, and both had their doubts that we should come, but they were looking at John in France! The last time the had seen him was after his brain surgery and he was so sick! They had wept to see him unable to use his left side due to the lack of coordination from the bleeding from the surgery to discover his type of cancer! Susan had sat beside him on the bed as he ate his meals to keep him from falling over to the left... that is what that "platform" does for John...it balanced his left arm and gave him the support he needed to walk alone! Back to this first meeting and this huge grin on John's face! It was the light that had been missing for this dark period! John and I had had the discussion of whether he should consider depression meds or not!
Susan is not one to show emotion much... probably because her mom is so much that way... but I know how much she loves her little brother, and this was a huge gift to her at this huge step in her life... for him to rise to the occasssion, and rise he did! He got up from laying on the bed sleeping in the fetal position and down as low as I never hope to see him again... and he walked with his platform walker to the car, to the plane, and then around the hilly and beautiful Saint Pierre, France! The weight and darkness was being left behind with each step that he took on this fabulous miraculous adventure! We were absolutely pinching ourselves to think that we were within 24 hours able to go to be with Susan and Nancy in France!
The community had been as shocked as we were with John's cancer, and had allowed Susan to come home to be with us through the first hard weeks, and lifted him up in prayer like crazy! So they were as thrilled as we that we could manage to come last minute! John was greeted with great joy everywhere we went and hugs from all that we met! How could he and his family do anything but grin and rejoice constantly and that was a new feeling after the war we had been through!
I hope to write more later... a tree of apples is calling me to do a day of applesauce... Maybe this is enough for today... From today's Gospel and thinking of Hallel and how they will be "chewing" the Gospel today and how it applies to her today...."And everyone who has given up houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands for the sake of my name will receive a hundred times more, and will inherit eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first." Matt19:23-30
Dear Lord, This was such a huge step in the healing direction for John and his family! It was a miracle and a total result of the amazing prayers that were supporting us and lowering us through the roof into the healing presence of our loving and forgiving Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ! We are uplifted today from our hard places in life that we find ourselves and take heart and courgage to go forward and to take up our mats and walk! Jesus we trust in you! Amen and Halleluia!
Bless-bless,Barb
Awoke early to the sunrise and the realization that this was the day that John and I drove down that driveway filled with so many feelings a year ago and drove to the Cities to board a plane for France! So many feelings... terror and the feeling like how did I ever end up in this unending bad dream... someone wake me up! How could my wonderful 21 year old son have brain cancer? And how could we have come to the point of doing brain surgery and leaving him forever changed to the point that we had just brought him home unable to walk or care for himself two weeks before?
The feelings are so deep and so hard from that point a year ago! It is hard to go back there and remember how hard it was to leave... even that morning I told Pat that we would not go and after the fact that we had to get our tickets refunded... we had all had tickets to go to be with Hallel when she took her habit with the community and changed her name. Then when John got cancer... all of us except Nancy got our tickets refunded, because there was no way we could go! I had paid extra in case this crazy idea did not happen... we could get our money back and our tickets refunded! This whole idea was so sudden and so impossible to believe that it could really happen!
The platform walker... How it wrenches my heart when I see it... yet at this point, it meant independence for John and gave me the crazy thought that we could go to France. The night before we left he had used it to go to the bathroom without help! That meant that he could get into the bathrooms on the trip and accomplish some of the things we take for granted, but would be necessary for him to be able to go to France! One day we were lower than a snake's belly and the next we were on a wild adventure... going to France!
I wept looking at this picture... although fuzzy and poor... probably more because of my tears than anything else... This is the first time that John and Sue saw each other. Yes, she and Nancy knew that we had done this wild and crazy thing, and both had their doubts that we should come, but they were looking at John in France! The last time the had seen him was after his brain surgery and he was so sick! They had wept to see him unable to use his left side due to the lack of coordination from the bleeding from the surgery to discover his type of cancer! Susan had sat beside him on the bed as he ate his meals to keep him from falling over to the left... that is what that "platform" does for John...it balanced his left arm and gave him the support he needed to walk alone! Back to this first meeting and this huge grin on John's face! It was the light that had been missing for this dark period! John and I had had the discussion of whether he should consider depression meds or not!
Susan is not one to show emotion much... probably because her mom is so much that way... but I know how much she loves her little brother, and this was a huge gift to her at this huge step in her life... for him to rise to the occasssion, and rise he did! He got up from laying on the bed sleeping in the fetal position and down as low as I never hope to see him again... and he walked with his platform walker to the car, to the plane, and then around the hilly and beautiful Saint Pierre, France! The weight and darkness was being left behind with each step that he took on this fabulous miraculous adventure! We were absolutely pinching ourselves to think that we were within 24 hours able to go to be with Susan and Nancy in France!
The community had been as shocked as we were with John's cancer, and had allowed Susan to come home to be with us through the first hard weeks, and lifted him up in prayer like crazy! So they were as thrilled as we that we could manage to come last minute! John was greeted with great joy everywhere we went and hugs from all that we met! How could he and his family do anything but grin and rejoice constantly and that was a new feeling after the war we had been through! 
I hope to write more later... a tree of apples is calling me to do a day of applesauce... Maybe this is enough for today... From today's Gospel and thinking of Hallel and how they will be "chewing" the Gospel today and how it applies to her today...."And everyone who has given up houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands for the sake of my name will receive a hundred times more, and will inherit eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first." Matt19:23-30
Dear Lord, This was such a huge step in the healing direction for John and his family! It was a miracle and a total result of the amazing prayers that were supporting us and lowering us through the roof into the healing presence of our loving and forgiving Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ! We are uplifted today from our hard places in life that we find ourselves and take heart and courgage to go forward and to take up our mats and walk! Jesus we trust in you! Amen and Halleluia! 
Bless-bless,Barb
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