Update 12/10/09 Day 32

Dear friends,

I forgot to mention this from yesterday. It was quite the sight, and just another vignette from the movie version of this wild ride. I asked Joseph if he would snow blow the driveway. He said he kind of remembered what to do, so he gave it a whirl. Well, things weren't going so well, when what to my wondering eyes should appear, but Mark C., delivering a meal from the Our Savior's family, wearing his nice suit and coat and hardly dressed for snow blowing. But snow blow he did. He instructed Joseph in the finer points, but he himself did the "hard part". Thank you brother Mark! It seems God keeps sending me people at just the right time, but apparently they don't get the memo about dress code!

Stephen hopped 28 feet today. Then, I watched him do his pivot and stand and the very difficult strengthening exercises required to help him recover. As my friend Jackie would say, good gravy! I didn't realize until I witnessed it how much work this is for Steve. It's like a full time job to go through all the daily therapies. He really is beat at the end of the day, but no less determined to do it better tomorrow. I am in awe of the way God put the human body and soul together. They heal, they strengthen and they grow in endurance through exercise. You've got to work the thing, whether it's a muscle or your faith, if you want it to get strong. The raw material is a gift, but you've got to move it. How many times I haven't! That's where His grace and mercy are are like the physical therapists; encouraging, stretching, engaging us to go further. OK, enough with the analogies...

Hannah is playing the piano right now, making up her own beautiful tune. Music is so therapeutic for some people, especially creative ones like her. I could cry just listening to the longing in the melody she is playing. I can't help but believe too, that music is medicine for the brain. It certainly is for the spirit.

Tomorrow we plan to buy pizza and visit Steve in the evening, and watch a couple of Christmas specials with him. I can't wait to see Christmas in Connecticut with Barbara Stanwyck and the great Sydney Greenstreet. That one may have to wait since it's a little long for a hospital room viewing. We'll probably stick with The Claymation Christmas (a family favorite) and The Year Without a Santa Claus, (that's the one with Heat Miser and Cold Miser). It would be more comfy in our own living room, but we'll all be together and I can sit in the Mets chair. Hannah can bring her lap quilt made by the kind Mrs. W., and perhaps we could smuggle in Cosette for the added coziness factor...(only kidding Sunnyview friends!)

So tonight, with great joy in my heart for my living, breathing kin, and astonishment over the stunning work of God through these past 32 days, and with endless thanksgiving for each one of you, I leave you with a Christmas quote by a most important fellow:

"And the Grinch, with his Grinch-feet ice cold in the snow, stood puzzling and puzzling, how could it be so? It came without ribbons. It came without tags. It came without packages, boxes or bags. And he puzzled and puzzled 'till his puzzler was sore. Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before. What if Christmas, he thought, doesn't come from a store. What if Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more..." ~Dr. Seuss

It certainly does, Mr. Grinch.

Your friend on the pilgrim road,

Loriann