a most special mother's day

The picture below has been my profile picture on Facebook the last several days. Lots of people have been honoring their moms by posting pictures. I happen to like this one which was taken for our church directory way back when - 1974ish. At that point in time, it had already been about nine years since my mom had seen one of her older brothers.

Fast forward to summer, 2010. Without going into too many personal details, most of which I don't even really know, there's still a brother my mom hasn't seen in 46 years and an uncle I've never met. And it seemed rather unlikely that he'd ever come home. Other visits had previously been planned and promises were left unfulfilled, feelings were hurt, and questions were left unanswered. But all along, my grandma has been saying that she wanted to see Tom before she goes Home.

Well, a couple of weeks ago, it was announced that he was planning a trip. . . for Mother's Day weekend. . .to surprise his 90 year old mother. I was concerned she'd have a heart attack upon his arrival. Apparently I wasn't alone in that thought because it was arranged that my aunt and uncle would be there when he came.

I'm not surprised that she didn't really recognize him at first. She hadn't seen any recent pictures of him in quite a long time. In fact, I was told that he sent her a picture of himself and it showed either the back or side of his head, not his face, so she wrote him back and sent $20 and told him to go get his picture taken and mail her one so she could see what he looks like. My grandma's feisty like that. But on Saturday, when he handed her some flowers and said, "Happy Mother's Day, Mom," she knew who had come to see her. And I'm told she sat with him on the couch and held his hand.

A family dinner was planned for Saturday night. My Grandma had six of her seven children with her, even my Aunt Nancy, who was just discharged from the hospital on Thursday. She's been undergoing radiation treatments and was severely dehydrated. Several grandchildren and great grandchildren were also there as well as my grandma's sister and some of her family who came from West Virginia.

I'm so happy for my grandma, my mom, and the rest of her siblings. They've waited a long time.

Back row L-R: Aunt Sandy, Uncle Joe (some of you may remember his craziness from the dinner reception at our wedding), Uncle Tom right there in the middle, Aunt Barb (a lot of you will know her from TTU or her kids Donald, Lora, Gerald {from WOL} & Karen), my mom Sharon.

Front row L-R: Grandma, Aunt Nancy

in Heaven: Uncle Earnie