Sweet story

I stole this from someone else's blog! I am still so touched by it! Hope you do not mind Jennifer, I just thought it was beautiful.




She jumped up as soon as she saw the surgeon come out of the operating room. She said: 'How is my little boy? Is he going to be all right? When can I see him?' The surgeon said, 'I'm sorry. We did all we could, but your boy didn't make it.'

Sally said, 'Why do little children get cancer? Doesn't God care any more? Where were you, God, when my son needed you?' The surgeon asked, 'Would you like some time alone with your son? One of the nurses will be out in a few minutes, before he's transported to the university.' Sally asked the nurse to stay with her while she said goodbye to son.

She ran her fingers lovingly through his thick red curly hair. 'Would you like a lock of his hair?' the nurse asked. Sally nodded yes. The nurse cut a lock of the boy's hair, put it in a plastic bag and handed it to Sally. The mother said, 'It was Jimmy's idea to donate his body to the University for Study. He said it might help somebody else.. 'I said no at first, but Jimmy said, 'Mom, I won't be using it after I die. Maybe it will help some other little boy spend one more day with his Mom..'

She went on, 'My Jimmy had a heart of gold. Always thinking of someone else. Always wanting to help others if he could.' Sally walked out of Children's Mercy Hospital for the last time, after spending most of the last six months there. She put the bag with Jimmy's belongings on the seat beside her in the car. The drive home was difficult. It was even harder to enter the empty house.

She carried Jimmy's belongings, and the plastic bag with the lock of his hair to her son's room. She started placing the model cars and other personal things back in his room exactly where he had always kept them. She lay down across his bed and, hugging his pillow, cried herself to sleep. It was around midnight when Sally awoke. Lying beside her on the bed was a folded letter.

The letter said :

'Dear Mom,
I know you're going to miss me; but don't think that I will ever forget you, or stop loving you, just 'cause I'm not around to say 'I Love You'. I will always love you, Mom, even more with each day. Someday we will see each other again. Until then, if you want to adopt a little boy so you won't be so lonely, that's okay with me. He can have my room and old stuff to play with. But, if you decide to get a girl instead, she probably wouldn't like the same things us boys do. You'll have to buy her dolls and stuff girls like, you know.
Don't be sad thinking about me. This really is a neat place. Grandma and Grandpa met me as soon as I got here and showed me around some, but it will take a long time to see everything. The angels are so cool. I love to watch them fly. And, you know what? Jesus doesn't look like any of his pictures. Yet, when I saw Him, I knew it was Him. Jesus himself took me to see GOD! And guess what, Mom? I got to sit on God's knee and talk to Him, like I was somebody important.
That's when I told Him that I wanted to write you a letter, to tell you goodbye and everything. But I already knew that wasn't allowed. Well, you know what Mom? God handed me some paper and His own personal pen to write you this letter I think Gabriel is the name of the angel who is going to drop this letter off to you. God said for me to give you the answer to one of the questions you asked Him 'where was He when I needed him?' 'God said He was in the same place with me, as when His son Jesus was on the cross. He was right there, as He always is with all His children.
Oh, by the way, Mom, no one else can see what I've written except you. To everyone else this is just a blank piece of paper. Isn't that cool? I have to give God His pen back now He needs it to write some more names in the Book of Life. Tonight I get to sit at the table with Jesus for supper. I'm sure the food will be great.
Oh, I almost forgot to tell you. I don't hurt anymore the cancer is all gone.. I'm glad because I couldn't stand that pain anymore and God couldn't stand to see me hurt so much, either. That's when He sent The Angel of Mercy to come get me. The Angel said I was a Special Delivery! How about that?
Signed with Love from God, Jesus & Me.

The big Race day!

This is the start of the race. I had just gone over the big mat, that activated the chip on my shoe to keep track of my progress during the race. I am in ORANGE, but not for long!!
This is at the 6 mile mark. Sister and the gang saw me here and I stopped for a quick drink, and chat.



Then I had to get back at it, because I was not even half way done. I also gave sister and them my long sleeve shirt, I warmed up rather quickly considering the 40 degree temps.

Here is the 12 mile mark. I was still smiling even though the last 4 miles were all up hill.......CRAZY. I waved, but kept going. At that point if I stopped, my body would have given out. I was starting to hurt in places that I would have never fathomed. How on earth was I to know that the tops of my feet would be so sore?

Here I am coming into the last 1/2 mile. Still running, although I do not know how. I am guessing adrenaline. The crowd was yelling and cheering, the music was loud, and I had a cheering section of 8 right in the corner. How could you not run after that?

I saw Traci first thing after I crossed and picked up my loot. Check out that medal! I am so excited about that especially. I was starting to feel the race as soon as I stopped. You can so see it in my face, I was starting to get stiff. (did not stretch like I should have after the fact)



Chase finally found me in this one. I was so glad to be done, and I was ready to go home.
Another picture, where I am clearly in pain! Haha But so happy to see Jonathan Anderson! He came to the race to cheer us on, such a good friend. We had not seen him in 10 years.




Cason came to the race to cheer too. This is a great picture of us. I was glad to see him, but he did not talk much. Sister said that he was overwhelmed by the huge volume of people that were there. Did I tell you that there were 13,000 that ran the race? Um, yeah massive amounts of people were cheering on friends and family too.



A better picture with Chase.
Me and sista.
Traci and I in the parking lot, right before we went back to the hotel. So proud and happy with our awesome medals! I was just actually happy to still be standing, and moving. I am glad to say that for my first 1/2 marathon, this was a wonderful experience. Will I run Austin again? Probably not, those hills were killers. But for my first time 3:13 was not bad. I am happy with my time, but the next one will be under 3 hours.

I did it!! Or We did it!!

Traci and I are back from our trip to Austin. WE had so much fun, a ton of good food, a lot of good visiting, and inside jokes now, and of course the RACE!! And let me say that the greatest guy in the entire world, drove us down and back. I will post pictures in a day or two, or as soon as I get them from my sister and Traci. It was an experience, that I will never forget, and I am so glad that I did it with Traci.

Prayer

I have been thinking a lot about prayer lately. I am not good at it. I am really good at staying in touch with all of my friends, a little too good, but cannot find the time to remember to pray. I know that at some point everyone goes through this and now it is my turn. I am just hoping to choose the right path, the one that leads me closer to God, and eternal life. I am not one to be preachy about things, because I do not see myself as being a great Christian influence, but I need to be. I am raising my children to spend their eternity with God, but I do not feel like I am a good influence. There is something wrong with that. I read the book "The Power of a Praying Wife"
and loved it. For a little while I was able to say the prayers and live the book, but then life got busy. So now with all of the complications of life, shouldn't I be more focused on prayer? The answer is yes, but how? A new challenge..........

Can you believe there are only 2 weeks left?

Well, I cannot believe it. Or maybe I just do not want to believe it, but here it is. I have been working my tail off with my trainer, who I love, but she has taken a day job now, so I am switching.
I am now going to start training with the owner, Haley. I have no doubt that she is great at what she does, but the fear of the unknown gets me every time. I have made a lot of progress, one of my goals was to be able to see my collar bones, and now I can. It is a small victory, but a victory none the less. None of my clothes fit......YAY! It is a good day when your sweats are too big. But now, I face the problem of buy new stuff or wait until I get all the way down to my "perfect" size. I guess it is a good problem to have. We are gonna have one of those weeks, you know the one. One or more of the kids is sick, there is nothing for dinner, and the laundry keeps adding up. We have already got the kid being sick, Emma has come down with the seasonal allergy stuff for like the third time in the past month, and the laundry is never finished around here. Tonight she got sick and now there is more laundry. Never ending cycle. It is funny, when I wanted to be a stay at home mom, I never thought about the sick times. And here we are again with Emma and her sickness. I am starting to think that we may need to head back up to the allergy doctor for a reevaluation of her diagnosis. More of that later.

I signed Abbi Grace up for preschool on Friday. I am a little sad, but I know she wants to go. I have been telling her that she will be going to Em's old school, but she does not believe me. She just laughs and says "momma this is Emma's school, not Abbi's" We will see what that will be like next year. I am nervous for her, I keep thinking of her as being this tiny little girl, and not my big 3 year old girl. I never knew it would be so hard to let my "baby" grow up. I did not intend to over baby her, it just sort of happened I guess. I have gotten better lately, but deep down, I miss her being a baby. I miss it with both of them. That new baby smell, the way they stretch, the sweet kisses, the noises they make when they sleep, all of it. I however do NOT, I repeat, do NOT want to have another baby. I just cannot commit to having 3 kids. And quoting Melanie "if you have 3, you really need to go ahead and have 4 kids. Keeps it all fair." So to that I say nope. We are good with the 2.


I never knew that my nervous rambling would be evident in a blog format, so for all of you reading this, I am sorry for the jumping all over the place. But if you know me, then you should have expected me to be nervous and rambly.