Sweet Celebrations

For this little boy we prayed, and God heard our cry...and on April 21, 1982 we were blessed with the birth of Steven Terry Patient. And the years passed and the boy grew in stature and in favor with both God and man. As it went for Samuel, it has gone for Steven.

Our "little boy", is no longer a little boy. He is now 27 years old and the father of the most beautiful of little grandsons...Blake :)

Today Steven was doing something wonderful...walking in the Relay for Life. Working with countless others to fund the finding of a cure for cancer.

In it's own that's quite a wonderful act of selfless giving of time...but add to it that he walks in memory of his Papa, my father, Julian Stearns Cottrell, who lost a violent, and brief, battle with lung cancer. He died on Wednesday, September 24, 1987...when Steven was only five years old.

Steven didn't get the years with his Papa that I wished he could have, but what he didn't get in years, he caught in memories. And as Steven walked today for life, for cures for cancer, and in memory of his Papa...he remembered that this was also the anniversary week of D-Day...and that Papa had fought on Omaha beach on that terrible day...and somehow walking in the silence today, Steven felt connected again to Papa.

I like that time and distance may seem to seperate us, but our hearts are always connected...over the hours, over the miles, over the years, and even over the passing from this life to the next...it's true...we WILL see you in the morning Dad, and what a glorious day of ''catching up" that will be :)