My daughter Jenny, her husband Bill and I just got back from a wonderful weekend visiting my granddaughter Michelle, her husband Jim and great-grand's Maddie and Camden in Franklin, Tennessee, for Camden's 1st birthday celebration.
Last Friday, I took my wonderful chocolate Lab, Ellie, to stay the weekend in Pataskala and then went to Margie Maldonado's funeral five miles from there. Margie's husband Victor died around three years ago. They were the director's of Outreach in Pataskala, a Christian drug and alcohol rehab organization. My husband Larry's first trip to Mexico was with Victor, and he came to San Saba in 2006 or 2007 for a Hope Not Dope Rally and spoke on the courthouse steps.
After the service on my way to Jenny's for the trip, I got a call from Janet Hoyt that I needed to re-send a signed contract on my house at San Saba again because she did not get the one I sent Thursday. I had time to go home and sign the contract on the computer and send it by email again. That was easier than when we were in Texas and sold our house in Ohio; I drove to Waco with signed papers to send to Ohio.
When I arrived in Pataskala to get Ellie this morning, there was a woman sitting under a tree in the grass with her dog. I went over to her and saw that she was crying and tenderly stroking her dog. She explained that her dog had to be “put down.” I cried with her and asked if I could pray, and she said “oh yes.” They were still there when Ellie and I left. When we moved to Texas, I had a black Labrador/Sharpai dog, Lady Magnolia (Maggie), that was a part of our family. In 2010 when Larry was in Mexico, she died during surgery, and I cried. And of course those memories came back to me today, and I fully understand what the woman is going through. When we can cry and pray with even a stranger, it is because we know the heartaches and The Comforter.