January 7, 2016 - Pat

She sent it to me a few weeks ago, during the time I was in my mental funk. It arrived in an email to me titled “I’m with you.”  It would be her last email to me.

 Sally,

I learned this quote when I was much younger and can’t forget it. 

      Life is mixture of sunshine and rain,

Teardrops and laughter, pleasure and pain.

We can’t have all bright days, but it’s certainly true

There was never a cloud that the sun didn’t shine through. 

Love and prayers,

Pat

She had typed her words to me in response to my blog post.  That was Pat, the encourager. I recently had learned that she read every single one of my posts and followed along as the words flowed from my screen to hers. She knew more of my story than most of you, as she also was a very dear friend of my mom’s. When my mom slept in my spare bedroom for the first few weeks after my mastectomy, Pat would get the inside scoop from nightly emails. She was the faithful prayer warrior through the 5 additional surgeries that would follow. And when fibrosis reared its ugly head, she was there with every step praying me from one day of funk to the next. She was Pat. And encourage is what Pat did. She died yesterday after a short battle with Leukemia and Pat’s world now feels her void.

I got the news while ranting to my sister about my hardwood floors. It honestly was perfect timing.  I had just experienced the most frustrating morning. We had closed on our house the evening before and this day was our first day in the new house. We were prepping it for the formal move coming in a few days. This day specifically was set for the arrival and installation of hardwoods, painting, carpet cleaning, and other to-do tasks. So when they pulled up the carpet in the master bedroom, prepped the subfloor and then opened  the box of hardwoods, we were quite disgruntled to find the wrong floors had been ordered. It has seemed pretty fitting for my week for this mishap to occur. In my reactive ways, I went from “all planned out and right on track” to now “what are we going to do???!!!” in a few short seconds. And as I was typing out my roar to my family, in came the email from Dad telling me of Pat. In that very moment my soul found calm. The floors slipped into perspective as Pat’s words came to mind. 

There was never a cloud that the sun didn’t shine through.

Even in death, Pat perfectly finds a way to remind me that while life will always have a sting, that sting is temporary through the grace of Christ.  She knows that oh so well in her own battles as leukemia definitely brought a sting, but her strength through circumstance served as a shining light of life pointing upward instead of inward.  The sun (son) always shines through. Sneaky Pat unknowingly using death to redirect me back to all that the Son can do. 

This is the first of many posts Pat will not get to read, but it seemed fitting to pay tribute to her journey that ran simultaneous to mine. She was there for all of the many moments of my last 3 years, hanging on to every word. She was there with encouraging words and prayerful support. She was there when the funk came, and she celebrated when the funk dispersed. (She was even there when I ran my snowmobile into a tree!) She pushed me forward all while fighting through her own battle. Hers was a battle fought with dignity, and little complaint. And her words penned above to me on a day when I felt at a low now remind me again that truly great warriors in Christ are hard to find, but Pat led the way and gives me the example of head held high and hope in tow no matter what life brings you.

Heaven gained another great, Pat Transou. Encourager to the end. 



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