GOOD NEWS!!

I went to see my surgeon last week. He gave us some great news. The tumor I have grew very rapidly. It was quite frightening. That is one of the main reasons we decided to go with chemo before surgery. He told us that the mass had shrunk from 8 cm. to 2 cm. after just two rounds of chemo! We are so happy, and so grateful! God is answering so many of your prayers and our prayers. It is a humbling experience. We promised that God would get the glory for whatever He chooses to do. We want to be sure that He indeed does get the glory. He is the Force behind all healing. Join us in thanking Him!!

Switching subjects--My in-laws are here. We had a very enjoyable peak in history yesterday. We went on a drive through the Catlett area. Bill's dad pointed out all kinds of interesting things along the way. That was the farm his father was going to manage when he moved to Catlett. After he found out what the job involved, he decided he couldn't work there afterall. That was the house Uncle Harvey or Uncle Davey or "you name it" lived in or built. This was the farm that his Dad bought. This is the farm that he worked on for four years. He was so disappointed when he got to the place where he and Mom had first lived when they got married. It had been destroyed so they could put in a development. He talked about when Cora was about to be born. He had taken Anna Mary to the hospital. They told him that the baby wasn't going to be born for awhile, and that he needed to go home. He walked all the way from Warrenton to the the other side of Nokesville to go home. As the roads go, that would have been at least 20 miles. I asked him why he didn't call someone to pick him up. He said, "You just didn't do things like that." He said it was a horrible walk because he was sure Anna Mary was going to die in childbirth. She lived, and she went through childbirth twelve more times. I don't know how many fields he plowed, basements he dug, woods he hunted in, in the Catlett area.

I could tell he was feeling a lot of nostalgia and wistfulness of days gone by that you never go back to. So much of his life history is here. A lot of his children and grandchildren are still in the area. Anna Mary (Bill's mother) passed away in 1991. He then married a wonderful lady we call Fannie or Grandma. He now lives in Minnesota and they get back here once or twice or a year.

It makes me wonder what my perspective of life will be when I am 72 years old. We need to live well now, so we can look back with fondness, not regret.