Thankful: Day 17

We spent Saturday in Dill City and Cordell visiting my Papa and my aunt, Louan.

When I was growing up, I saw Louan and my cousins maybe once per year. They lived in El Paso and it's a long drive. After my Nana passed away several years ago and my Papa's health began deteriorating, Louan moved into Papa's house to help take care of him. That is when I began seeing her fairly regularly.

Oh, how I LOVE her!

My kids are dear to her. She doesn't have any grandchildren of her own, so she treats my kids as though they are her grandkids. The feeling is mutual; my kids adore her as well. She is one of the last links my children have to my mom. She can tell the stories I don't know. She can make my mom real to them.

She is the closest thing to mom I have. I have a wonderful mother-in-law, and I have a great step-mom, but Louan can talk to me about my family. She understands the weird idiosyncrasies I share with other family members. She can identify the faces I don't recognize in the old family photos. She makes missing my Nana and mom better just by being there to remind me that they did exist and that she loves and misses them too. My life is better because she is in it.

I am so thankful that although the circumstances that brought her here, to Oklahoma, to live were horribly sad, God has used these years to bring us together resulting in a wonderful relationship.