Homecoming: This Friday.
Forty-seven (only 47 ...) days after he went to Casper for a routine follow-up, Dad is going home - a very different man from who he was in August.
I doubt he remembers that week. Or much that led up to it. Which is a mercy in itself. We wish we could forget it, too.
He's going home.
He's looking foward first to sleeping in his own bed - with Mom - and second to not having "a busy-body nurse poking" him.
He misses his dinner date. He misses his dog.
They miss him, too.
I'll spend the most thankful of Thanksgivings at home this year, with (most of) the people I'm most thankful to be with.
Homecoming, indeed.
Thank you - all of you - for your prayers, your visits, your phone calls, your cards, your financial help, your emails, your hugs, your tears ... your "likes" on Facebook as we cheered every milestone of Dad's survival and recovery.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
We thank God for His mercy. This is not "owed"; it was and is the opposite of our fears and expectations. Despite the frustrations & setbacks, this is the embodiment of divine grace & mercy.
We thank you for your friendship - for the grace with which you have made yourselves, your time, your homes, your resources available & abundant.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
I wish I had a way to more tangibly thank each of you. In the meantime, please, please accept my gratitude for every little - and large - gesture you have made. It has not been unnoticed. It is not unappreciated.
And please - say hello to Dad if you see him out & about in Gillette. Chances are he may not remember you, but tell him who you are, how you know him.
Tell him that you've heard about what happened. Tell him you're thinking of him & cheering for him. Ask Mom if there's a way you can help her.
He's said recently that encouragement helps him a lot to know he's making progress. I tell him every time I talk to him that he's doing so well.
It's true.
Happy Homecoming, Daddy. I love you.
