A Rosalie By Any Other Name ... Day 11

I was sitting in an unfamiliar church on a Sunday morning. After a sermon that hit me on several places of my life, the speaker gave an altar call for anyone who wanted prayer. I went forward; but then I didn't know what to do. I felt like I was making a spectacle of myself, so I just slid into a seat on the front row and sat there, head bowed, tears coursing down my face.

Suddenly I felt a presence next to me. An arm was wrapped around my shoulder and I was pulled into her embrace. Her first words were, "I love you," and then she started to pray.

She prayed the words that I was feeling but couldn't find - how did she know? And she stayed with me thus until the maelstrom in my mind had passed, until an uneasy, tentative peace entered.

That was almost ten years ago; and I have been very conscious of her prayers for me, her concern for me, ever since that time. 

She is willing to talk to me and to listen to me any time I need a sounding board. She has talked me down and built me up. Sometimes late in the night she'll shoot me a Facebook message just to say hi and that she's thinking about me.

She allows herself to be vulnerable to others and because of that she runs great risk of her own heart being bruised. Still, if it is of help to someone else she is willing to take that risk. She has fought and won great battles in her own life and is always willing to help others from the depths of her experience and knowledge.

Our mothers passed away on the same day. Her mother's funeral was the Friday and mine's was the Saturday. We couldn't be there to support each other at the time - we were both crumbling under the weight of our respective unfathomable losses. Yet there is a sweetness, a unity that has grown out of our shared timeline and we have been able to mourn and rejoice together since then, secure in the knowledge that both of them are far better off than they were on this earth and that we will see them again. 

I have told her that she and her husband need to play the organ and the piano at my funeral - imagine the old hymns at the hands of David and Rosalie being my final send-off from this earth!

A Rosalie by any other name might smell as sweet - but I doubt it ...