Thinking Out Loud, Volume CCLXIV

It was December 2006, and it was the Saturday night of the weekend of the White Rock Marathon in Dallas. Our running group had converged on Dallas that morning and now we were all gathered at the Macaroni Grill in Plano to "carb up" before the big run the next morning. I can't recall just how many people we had seated at our table, but I do know that it was a large group, and we were all talking at the same time, laughing and just having a great time. Then my phone rang. Sometimes when I'm in that kind of environment, I'll just let it ring, but this was from my brother, Stan, and when I get a call from a family member, I try to answer if I can. That was especially true at that time, because my mom, who was living with him in Alabama at the time, had been very sick. I got up and walked away from the table a ways to try to get away from the noise so I could hear better. He told me that he had just had a visit with Mom's doctor and the news was not good. The cancer had spread practically all over her body, and there was really nothing more they could do for her. "How much time are they giving her?" I asked. He replied, "It's just a matter of a few weeks now." Then he continued, "I have to go back to her room and talk to her and tell her what the doctor said." Mom had made us promise her that if we ever received that kind of news about her, we would not keep it from her. "When are you going to tell her?" I asked. "Right now, as soon as I hang up the phone," he answered.

It's hard to describe how I was feeling when I walked back to our table. Should I say anything about it to my friends who were with me that night? I decided not to do that, so I just quietly told my wife and son who were sitting next to me. My appetite was gone. All I could think of was here I was, out having a good time with some of my close friends, and at the same time several hundred miles away, my mother was hearing the news that she was about to die. Several minutes later, my phone rang again. When I saw that it was Stan, I got up and walked back over to the same spot where we had had our conversation a few minutes before.

"Did you talk to her?" I asked.

"Yes."

"How did she take it?"

"Great. She couldn't have taken it any better."

Now let me shift gears just a little. I can't take any credit for the idea for today's writing. The words are mine, but the thought came to me in the form of a private facebook message I received from my niece, DeAnna Thomas, in response to last week's "Thinking Out Loud," which was about my granddaughter, Lennon. I was especially touched by what DeAnna had to say since she and her husband, Michael, have just gone through a very tragic time in their lives. The essence of what she said, at least the way I took it, is that sometimes when we come face to face with news that can be devastating, we start to pray for a miracle, but, according to the way we are asking, the miracle never comes; yet the miracle is there, only it's not dressed the way we are expecting.

In a recent facebook post, I said, "If God always gave us everything we asked for, the world would be overcrowded, because no one would ever die." DeAnna's letter to me has now opened my eyes to see this situation in a whole new light...in a way that I've never thought of before. Just because our prayers don't get answered in the way that we anticipate, it doesn't mean that our miracle is not there. The people who pray the most still have to face tragedy in their lives. We're not promised to always be taken around the fire; sometimes we're led "through" the fire. Where the miracle comes in is how we can face the fire with miraculous peace and calm. In DeAnna's words, we "discredit the miracle" by not seeing it for what it really is.

Mom would've preferred to live, yet she lived only four weeks from the night that I received that call from my brother. I spent as much time as I possibly could with her those last few days of her life, and I must say I was "blown away" by the graceful calmness with which she faced death. Chances are, I'll someday have to hear the same kind of news she received on that December night, and when I do, I pray that I can take it with the same poise that she did. DeAnna told me about how she was so "inspired" by "Memaw's" positive attitude in her situation and the example she set for those who loved her, when she could've just as easily been bitter over her ordeal. I saw that same upbeat, positive outlook from DeAnna and Michael as they walked through their own fire. It's nothing short of a miracle.

Preston