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.
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.
Click www.tradinginthetatas.blogspot.com to access other posts.
Click www.tradinginthetatas.blogspot.com to access other posts.
