Gone too soon!

For those of you who read my blog you will know that the month of December hasn't been so full of Christmas cheer. Death has been very prevalent this month. I just yesterday lost my dear dear friend JoAnn to cancer. She was so amazing, enduring over 4 years fighting this horrible disease with out a complaint. She under went chemo every 3 weeks for 4 years and continued working at the job she loved and put her whole heart into. She relied on Heavenly Father and new she had this for a reason we may never know. She was the most loyal friend and over looked your faults 100 percent of the time. She had real spunk too, that I will miss the most. She had an opinion on every topic but, she was never arrogant and listened to your opinion too.

She adopted with her husband, 2 beautiful children as babies, they are now 18 and 16 years old. Before adopting children she was always surrounded by children and teens including my own that claim her as their friend as well. We had the blessing of watching their little daughter while they traveled 1/2 hour each way to the hospital when the little boy they were to adopt was in the ICU, born prematurely, for 2 months. When they saw the baby for the first time they were told they didn't have to adopt him, they could wait for another healthier baby to be born, she said "NO". She knew this little boy was meant for them.

She has so much trust in people and even for me (more than I had for myself for sure) that when the little guy came home from the hospital she wanted me to watch him because she knew I was the best one for the task. I was scared to death, he was on a monitor because his little lungs weren't that developed yet, he would stop breathing and you would need to caress him to get him to start again when the monitor went off. One day as I was feeding him his bottle, he started to choke and the next thing I knew he was turning blue. I was frightened to death but tried to pry my finger into his mouth to remove his tongue that had gone back into his throat. His jaws were so tightly clenched that it was very difficult to do. Soon though I was able to do it and he started to turn pink and began breathing again. Right after I got him breathing again my young junior high aged daughter walked into the house from school. I handed the baby to her and sat down on the floor where I stood to sob and shake like a leaf. I called JoAnn at work when I regained my composure and told her of all that had transpired. To prove what a kind and wonderful person she was she said to me "see I knew you were the best one to be watching him", she went back to work and picked him up after putting in the rest of her time. She trusted people like that all the time and I will always love her for it.

We spoke often about buying some property big enough for 2 houses and we could live right next door to each other. I would have loved that so much. So some of my last words to her was "JoAnn go pick out that property in heaven so we can live right next to each other". I will love that!

We were meant to be friends and it happened in a round of about way. Our mother's worked together and were friends, our paths crossed as we worked in the same place for a while but, we met when our husbands were best friends and we started hanging out with them when we were all just dating. We have traveled extensively with them for the last 30 years or so to places like Flaming Gorge 2 or 3 times a summer, Lake Powell every year, San Juan Island with our own boats, San Francisco, Seattle, Canada, and on several cruises. Our kids grew up together and our hearts grew to love one another even more. I have a huge hole in my heart and look forward to seeing her again.

She was always up to an adventure and she is on the biggest one yet and I know she will be waiting on me to join her. I love you forever my dear friend!!!