Fern Ridge Review
Creswell Chronicle
Sweet Lorane Community News
January 2, 2020
By Pat Edwards
Happy New Year! I hope that each of you have taken some time to come up with resolutions for 2020, but have also been able to look back on 2019 and appreciate and honor the positives in our lives.
For me, I’ve decided to focus on family and how blessed I am to be a part of mine. Like all families, we are not perfect and we have issues occasionally to work through, but that’s one of the positives… we try our best to work through them—together. This was demonstrated recently, and I was the beneficiary.
A couple of months ago, In this column, I mentioned how nervous I was in joining the Fern Ridge Community Choir to rehearse for a 3-performance Christmas concert in late December. I don’t read music and have never tried to sing the carols in multi-part harmonies. I’ve only sung their beautiful melodies. As the day approached of the first performance, I found that I was enjoying the whole experience and that night, as I walked out onto the stage with the group, in the audience, I spotted 15 members of our family filling one whole side of the theater. They had come out in force to show their love and support for me.
A special joy came through the songs that I sang that night, and when we walked off the stage at the intermission, I broke out of our procession to kneel down with open arms to receive two of our great-granddaughters who had been waving and calling, “GiGi!”
Afterwards, when the concert had ended, I received the hugs of daughters, son-in-law, granddaughters and their husbands, great-grands, my sister-in-law and brother-in-law. Not all of our special people were able to make it, but my heart was bursting.
The most notable one missing was our son, Rob, who had just had surgery that morning to fuse vertebrae in his neck to relieve the terrible pain he has been living with for so long. He was still in the hospital, but I could feel his presence in my heart.
Rob has always exemplified the meaning of “family.” As a surgical assistant for Slocum Orthopedics, he has always been there for whatever family member is sick or injured or in need of surgery. He has always made time in his busy schedule to stop by to see us before a surgery to hold our hands or to be there in the recovery room to make sure we were going to be ok.
I remember the time when I was rushed to the emergency room with a perforated bowel that needed immediate surgery. Rob stood next to the exam table, holding me as I sat sobbing, while two technicians put a gastric tube through my nasal passage and into my stomach. It was uncomfortable and frightening, but it was Rob, with his infinite gentleness and calm, who got me through it.
He’s done the same for his father, daughters, sisters, cousins, uncles and aunts, friends—any of us who need him—whenever he could. So, I knew that he was with us in spirit that night at the Christmas concert, too.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again… I am so blessed!
So here’s to a 2020 that will allow Rob’s pain, which is already abating, to disappear entirely, and to allow my husband Jim to gain strength and good health once again. Most of all, whatever happens, let each of us continue to support each other as we always have… as a family!
Happy New Year to all!
All Things Lorane 