Good morning…
Around 5:45 pm last night, I snapped a picture of a friend’s house as I drove by. “Passing your home,” I stopped briefly to include the photo as I texted our group of five friends. “When might we get together next?”
How could I have known my text would set off such an explosion of life?
“Go cut some flowers!!!” my friend texted right back. “Would love to see everyone and catch up soon.”
“Sue,” another friend joined the text stream, “I was thinking about y’all this morning after reading your lightbulb story. You all have been my lightbulb in my darkest times. I have been through dark places throughout the years. Sometimes I want to just stay there. But you come to my dark place and shine bright light around me. Refusing to leave me until the dark times have passed. Thank you for being my lightbulbs, my beautiful friends.”
“Tears have been surfacing today watching the D Day celebrations,” another friend dove into the text stream. “Your text turned them on again. The way you and your dear family have managed your daughter’s cancer journey has had light shining all around it too. Rock on. You always do. Let’s meet up soon. Xo.”
“My husband’s grandfather was there on D Day,” wrote our friend who has endured deep dark places of pain. “He enlisted when he was sixteen. He lied on the application regarding his age because he wanted to serve his country. He was sent on D Day as part of the first wave. The Germans shot at these young soldiers as they tried to get off the boat. He was the only one who made it to the shore from his boat.”
“Omg,” a friend texted back. “Your husband is from good stock.”
“Oh my goodness,” another friend chimed in quick. “The stories I’ve heard today. Truly the Greatest Generation and we owe them so much.”
“So brave and so young,” another friend joined the series of texts. “You know it had to have devastated him, yet he lived a full life without complaining.”
“My husband’s grandfather was fearless,” the storytelling continued. “He was assigned some of the most dangerous tasks. The chance of surviving all his assignments was zero. He never talked about the war and never lived a day with a chip on his shoulder.”
“I love that you shared that story today,” a friend circled us back around. “He might be gone, but his memory lives on. I was pleasantly surprised to see how ‘with it’ these 90-year-old veterans were today. A lot were wearing 90 pretty well.”
“He once jumped into a burning building that no one else would enter to save a boy in Paris,” our friend returned to her husband’s grandfather. “This boy grew up to be a famous French journalist. He wrote the story about him and won numerous awards. When someone told my husband’s grandfather, he said, ‘I can’t believe anyone would remember something like that!’ That was all he said about it.”
“I reached out as I passed your house,” I texted the group this morning, “and then I drove home to card games with our twenty and twenty-two year old daughters, a fun dinner out with friends, and packing for a wedding weekend, laundry, more cards, and then bed. I did not look at my phone until just now. I love hearing stories of the dark times lit by the lightbulbs of brave, selfless people who give their all to all, paving our way to freedom and abundant life. Maybe I will just need to write my blog about this now! How marvelous it is to have this unique friend group that bonds us and helps us to remember where we have been before we live on, passing rich stories on to the next generation. I love you all and enjoy our friendship. Happy rainy day. The flowers are overjoyed.”
When times are good, you should be cheerful; when times are bad, think what it means. God makes them both to keep us from knowing what will happen next (Ecclesiastes 7:14, CEV).
…Sue…
