"The Wall of Blessings and The Cheer Calendar"

My pal Susan brought a calendar and a pack of sticky notes to the Power Surge. She passed it around to all of my girlfriends who each signed up for one or more days of my treatment. They then recorded their days on the sticky notes to take with them as a reminder. On her appointed day, each girlfriend would be sure and send me a card, a note, or drop off a little "thinking of you" present at my door. They did this for every single day of my treatment, January through June. I can't tell you how much I came to look forward to seeing that card in the mail every day. Especially with a long illness, you receive lots of cards in the first few weeks, then it kind of tapers off. These daily reminders that people were thinking of me were such a lift.

After school, my kids would bring my mail up to my bedroom and open the cards while they had a snack. It was then their job to tape the cards up on my bedroom walls, on my "Wall of Blessings". They would read the cards, (sometimes from people we didn't even know: a sister or a friend of a friend who had heard about the Power Surge) and talk about all the people who were praying for us and how lucky we were to have such good friends. By the time I finished treatment, two walls of my bedroom were completely covered, floor to ceiling with hundreds of messages of love and support. It was the first thing I would see when I opened my eyes in the morning, and the last thing I saw before I turned out the lights. On many nights when I couldn't sleep, I would turn on the lamp and just look at all the reminders of all the people who loved me and who were praying for me and sending me strength, courage, care, and comfort. I realized that I had a choice: count my aches and pains, or count my blessings. How lucky am I: I never ran out of blessings to count before I fell back asleep.

Huge life lessons were taught on those afternoons while my children and I read cards, ate cookies, and talked. My kids learned more about friendship, loyalty, faith, and compassion from my friends and that "Wall of Blessings" than I could ever tell them.