Cathy is on the verge of coming home!
It could be as soon as today (Saturday) but almost certainly by or before Monday.
Her heart is doing great, but as her sternum fuses back together, and the muscle, tissue, and bones get re-aquainted, there is some pain.
I have retrieved the kids from the wonderful Jones Family. We could not have done any better than their family to nourish, love, and support out children this week. Kathleen and Patrick were great, but their kids also deserve a lot of credit for sharing their rooms, toys, and mom and dad with ours.
We will never be able to thank them enough!
Since Cathy will be unable to do much of anything for 3-4 weeks, Cathy's twin-sister, Grace, is coming for Thanksgiving Week to play the role of Cathy in our home. Grace is giving up Thanksgiving with her family (she and her husband have twin ten year-old boys in Greenville, SC) to be with us and help out.
So, if you see a "Cathy" that looks extra perky and fit around the house or at school, it will be Grace.
I have added an off-topic story about the first time I met Grace at the end of this post. It had a wacky Patty Duke, Hayley Mills feel to it.
We have started receiving meals at our home. I will leave a large cooler on the porch in case you are one of the many who are helping with food.
Meeting Grace For the First Time
I met Cathy for the first time July 14, 1992. She was working in a store in the Market area of Charleston, and I was looking for a satchel bag, as I was getting ready to start teaching that Fall. I won't go into all the details of that meeting except to say that as I had left the seminary a couple of months before, and because I was pretty hopeless with the opposite gender way before I ever went into the seminary, it was a miracle that she agreed to go out on a date the upcoming weekend. I was smitten with Cathy after that first meeting, but she was wise enough to be a little skeptical about me.
It was either the next day or two days later that I was walking out of another store on King Street in Charleston (the main commerical street in downtown Charleston.)
I literally just walked out of a store and turned to go north, when a young woman walked south right towards me.
It took a second or two as she approached me, but I thought I had seen her before, and just as she got to me, I realized that I thought she looked a lot like the girl who had agreed to go out with me from the previous day. I blurted out "Hi," and she looked at me with a mix of surprise and confusion as if she had never seen me before (Cathy and I had about a 30 minute conversation the day we met, so I sort of expected a hint of recognition.) I think about all I got was a look of confusion and a step to the right as she continued on her way.
In my defense, Cathy didn't mention that she had a twin sister that worked in a shop on King Street when we first met (why would she, especially if she was (wisely) trying to cover her trail should I turn out to be some kind of psychopath?)
So, I was left to ruminate on 1.) whether I just didn't get a good enough look at Cathy the first time and this woman I passed was not Cathy; 2.) I really didn't make much of an impression in our first meeting; 3.) I did make a real impression, but it wasn't as good as I thought; 4.) all of the above.
What I didn't consider was that the facts were varied combinations of all of the above.
When Cathy and I spoke later that week to set up out first date, I casually asked her if she had been working on the day in question, and she said she had been (her shop was a good distance from where I had encountered the mystery woman, and Cathy couldn't really leave her shop unattended,) so I mentioned seeing someone who I thought looked like her on the day at the time in question, and that the woman had pretty much looked at me like I was crazy.
It was then she mentioned that she had a twin sister who worked at a store on King Street, and the woman I saw was probably Grace.
So, that was my first time meeting Grace.
For the record, they are not identical twins, and they looked a lot more alike than they do now.
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