People Who Deserve Awards

Patti Digh, in her Life is a Verb, has writing challenges for the reader.  The one I met on the page today was inspiring to me.  I, the reader, (with a time limit of three minutes) was to make a list of people in my life who deserved an award and why each did.  The next step was to design the award.  I'm not able to visualize well, as far as drawing, but I did that step also.  Lastly, I was to think of times I deserved an award.  
What I want to share today are people I want to award for how they've made an impact on my life.  I'm awarding them in no particular order because they all have meaning in my life.

Candice, Celeste, Charley, myself and Emily Rose

• Celeste: For calling me on Valentine's Day in 2006.  This young woman of 19, at that time, sensed that the holiday would have a different effect on me that year because my husband had died just the previous month.  (I was totally blind-sided by how much I hated the Valentine commercials that year!)  Celeste not only e-mails or calls me on the 11th of January each year, but she keeps tabs on me frequently even though she now lives in a different state.

• Charley: She calls me nearly every day to make sure I am okay.

Alison in 2nd grade, 2nd row first girl on right



• Alison: She calls me regularly to see if she can pick up anything for me on her way home from work.

• Christine: She spends each January 11th with me; it's the anniversary of my husband's death. She also e-mails me or calls me regularly to see how I'm doing.  What I see as irony, is that she is my former daughter-in-law whom I loved before she married into our family, and still love her fiercely.

• Candice: She also makes sure she touches base with me on January 11.  Plus she calls me often to have long chatty conversations.

• Jeremy: Home repairs would be very expensive for me without this son's plumbing, electrical and carpentry skills.  He also is on hand whenever I need him emotionally too.

• Margaret Ann: She's been my closest friend for decades, and is my daughter-in-law.  She has seen me through the deepest days of depression and been there for me in celebrations.
• My neighbor Shirley: She called me today to see if I was in need of anything and if I was okay.  As she was standing doing her lunch dishes, she looks at the back of my home.  She is my age or older, and has health problems, but she had concerns for me.