My dad is coming up to his eighty-ninth birthday in September. I was recently going through old photo albums with him looking for pictures of the house where he was born for a blog about life in the Midwest. He was a cutie! He reminded me of my brother when he was small, and I know my dad would consider that to be the greatest compliment. My father was a doctor. He left for work before I was up in the morning and didn’t get home until supper, but nearly every evening he led our family in worship. We sat on the couch and sang a few hymns from the old Inter-Varsity hymnal.
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Mother’s Day 1946. My parents were married in Indianapolis, Indiana. My mother wore a blue suit that afterwards was her best church outfit. They intended to be missionaries to India, but my dad came down with tuberculosis that year and my mom with rheumatic fever, and it was eighteen years before they made it to India. Etta Wilson was first recommended to me as an agent by Jane Kurtz, adult missionary kid and author of several award winning children’s books. At the time Etta’s client list was full. A few years later I queried her again. That same day, she had noticed an announcement of the release of my picture book So That's What God is Like. It felt right to both of us, and she took me on. In 2003 shortly after my second book, Between Two Worlds, came out, Gladys Hunt asked me to accompany her to a conference and help to manage her book table. In exchange, I could display my books with hers. My books along side those of Gladys Hunt? Wow! My English friend Liz used to live in a little trailer in the hills of Swaziland and teach at the local African school. She knew all the local birds (or so it seemed to me.) She had an impish grin and was always game to see what was around the next corner or over the next hill. That was twenty-five years ago when we lived in Maputo, Mozambique, and had to go to Swaziland every two or three months just to buy groceries. Walks in the hills with Liz and others saved my sanity in those difficult days. Forgive me if I return to the topic of death. It’s not a usual theme of this blog, but this week I lost yet another friend to a brain tumor, and my husband was diagnosed with a pulmonary embolism. Thirty per cent of people with PE die in the first few hours; he went for days before we realized that was what was going on. We are very grateful to God for his mercy. My husband will be on rat poison (Warfarin®) for months while we pray that the massive clot in his leg will dissolve without further pieces breaking off and moving to his heart, brain or lungs. I called him ‘Brat’ instead of Brad, mainly because that was the way big sisters were expected to think of a brother seven years younger. The only quarrel I remember was once when I was left to babysit and he refused to ‘obey’ me. Can’t say that I blame him. The bedrooms were on the lower level in our house, and the first time I returned from college he came pounding up the stairs to throw his arms around me. The next time I came home I looked forward to the same enthusiastic welcome, but he was outside shooting baskets with the guys and all I got was a curt “Hi.” |
AuthorLeAnne Hardy has lived in six countries on four continents. Her books come out of her cross-cultural experiences and her passion to use story to convey spiritual truths in a form that will permeate lives. Add http://www.leannehardy.net/1/feed to your RSS feed.
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