Thankful

Ok, so I will warn you now; this may be an overly sappy post. I'm going on 3 hours sleep, achieved 1 hour at a time, and I am a bit emotional, but here goes.

Paul and I went to a funeral this morning. Doreen was a friend of our, actually, more of an acquaintance. She had some severe lung disease and needed a double lung transplant. Unfortunately for her, she was not to receive this "gift of life."

At the funeral where Reverend Clive Dickens spoke, I got to thinking about how easily this could have been for Paul. How without the "gifts" given to him, I could be the person in the front pew. We have been so fortunate. I held Paul's hand and cried. Not for Doreen, oddly enough, but for what could have been for us. Doreen was a dear person, but I really didn’t know her well. Our common bond was her need for a transplant. We maybe saw her 10 times in her life, but we still felt for her, and her need.

Reverend Dickens is an amazing speaker. When he "preaches” he speaks to you, not in the "preachy minister tone" but like he is having a conversation with you. His funeral service is a local legend, and many have spoken about Clive's story before. His mother died when he was 3, his father when he was 10 and the Aunt that raised him from there died when he was 16. His 12 year old daughter died tragically on the way home from school one day, and Reverend Dickens shares this with the mourners. At first I thought "how self serving, sharing his grief when others are so acutely feeling their sorrow" but when he talks about the thousands of monarch butterflies that found their way to his yard on the eve of his daughter's funeral and how he knows that was God's way of telling him there was a reason to go on, a hereafter and that he will be with his family again. When he chokes up saying he knows he will go to heaven one day and say "Hello Momma, Hello Papa." It makes me want to believe it too.

So today I cried at a funeral, but the tears were one of thanks for Shelly and our little 7 year old donor, who still remains un-named. They were for the family's pain, and for Reverend Dickens tale, and for myself, because I do not believe that I will get to say "Hello Momma" some day. It would be nice, but I don't see that as truth. But most of all, I am thankful for the day today is, and that my husband is healthy and happy (usually) and that he was there to hold my hand as I cried.