Here is our 2007 Christmas photo that I didn't have printed to mail to everyone. I'm just posting it here for you to see. It was taken Dec. 1 after a wonderful wedding we attended in downtown Orlando.

As I write this, we are all packed and ready to load the car to drive to Atlanta for Christmas with Vernon's mother, brother and family. However, Vernon is feeling sick at the moment so I decided this was a good time to blog. It is cloudy and a cool 60 something degrees outside.

We still have shopping to do when we get there and I'm not even halfway through writing cards that I want to send. So for anyone who doesn't receive one, consider this our greeting. We love and appreciate you and are grateful for your continued interest in how Vernon is doing since transplant.

February 4 will be two years since that big day and Feb. 8 is the Shands Heart Transplant Reunion that we have been looking forward to attending so that we can see our friends again.

Our big news is that we wrote a letter to Lisa, the wife of Vernon's donor, Steven. I don't recall if we mentioned earlier this year that we received a letter from her in response to our first letter to "the family of the donor." We were thrilled just to receive a letter from her, as many of the other transplant patients have not. She told us Steven was her best friend and had a big heart full of love. He could always make her laugh. He liked old cars, like Vernon. We cried, of course, for her loss and yet were comforted to read that she was glad that she could share the heart with Vernon. She closed by saying she would like to keep in touch with us.

So the main thing our letter that we wrote last week said was that we would like to meet her. We know this is a difficult season for her, the second Christmas without her best friend and husband. Since we don't have her last name or address (for her protection and ours), we gave the letter to our coordinator at Shands, who passes it on to the donor procurement group that is in contact with Lisa. They send it on to her. So we don't know when she will receive it or when we will hear back from her because her letter will be routed to us the same way ours was sent to her.

IF she agrees to meet with us, then we understand that the meeting will be set up and the donor procurement representative will be there to make sure it all goes well. The three other transplant patients who have been able to meet their donor family have told us they were all nervous at first but quickly felt comfortable and like family. There were tears and laughter and they spent several hours together getting more acquainted. Not everyone looks at it this way, but we believe Lisa would be greatly comforted to see and meet Vernon.

So we invite you to join us in our Christmas prayer.: first, that Lisa and her family (we don't know if there are children yet) will be comforted by God in this season; that when she receives our letter, she will want to meet us and communicate that; and finally that the meeting would be a blessing to all of us. In the meantime, we wait in hope, knowing it could be months.

I imagine there is at least one thing that you are waiting in hope for as well. Let's be patient together, OK? If you want to share that with us, tell us by leaving a comment here or emailing us at iamawalkingmiracle2@yahoo.com

If you would like to read an inspiring account of the four people who received the gift of the organ they needed as a result of the death of a wonderful young man, go to this site: http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/eticket/story?page=rayofhope
We were able to watch the story told on ESPN but there is more information online than was televised.

I pray you have a meaningful Christmas~

Guess who?

Left to right: Emmy, Richard, Morgan, Susan, Peg, Vernon and Deb

Richard and Susan, Peg and Vernon

Momma Brady and her two "daughters"

Wow, it has been two months since I've written here. I wonder if anyone is still checking or if all have given up on me. There just isn't enough time to do all I want to do each day! Do you feel like that, too?

We enjoyed being in Atlanta for Thanksgiving and stayed at Vernon's mother's house. When we arrived, the maple tree was a lovely yellow and still had most of its leaves but by the time we left most of the leaves were down. Here are some pictures to show you the change.
Here is a picture I really like because you see the reflection of the leaves in the glass and the lace curtains on the inside of the window. This window is in the bedroom that we stay in.


This is all for this posting but will start another one that will have family pictures taken on Thanksgiving Day.