One of the benefits of being retired is you can pick up and go without much thought. Yesterday, Thursday 1/19/19, was one of those days. We had recently received news that our dear friend, Opal Wakefield Johnson, had had a stroke which in turn caused a fall resulting in a broken femur. We felt that we needed to see her so that’s just what we did. We left home around 8:30 a.m. (EDT) drove for almost four hours…due to some GPS miss directions, or did we just miss our turn? Those back road were very narrow, curvy, and hilly.
We arrived in Cookville, TN around 11:15 am (CST) and surprised Opal with our presence. She is 91 now, still has a very good mind, her witty sense of humor is still there, hears well…much better than either one of us…, but has macular degeneration so her vision is very limited. She said she could see us and knew exactly who we were when we arrived. One of her grandson’s was there…Chris which is Steve’s son…and he had no clue who we were as he was just a child the last time we saw him. He must have called his dad to let him know we were there as Steve came over for a little bit, too.
We visited for almost two hours and we were blessed to get that time with her. We enjoyed many memories, laughs, and tears during our time together. As she said…there’s been a lot of water go through our friendship bridges and some of it was really murky. We have great memories, along with some horrific ones, of being with her, and her family, all those many years ago. We will pray for her to heal and to be pain free as we know that’s what she’d like. We love her and she loves us and for that I will always be thankful.
All that read this “occasional blog” … reach out to the people that have been in your life and let them know you are thinking of them. That meant so much to Opal and even more to us. Enjoy the weekend, pray we will eventually get some rain, and for the people of Houston that got way to much rain. We’ll get to see the twins, along with Scott and Allison, next week and we’re looking forward to that. Love to you all.
Blessings…..