A Legacy of Service

Your mother, Deane, did an act of service that forever earned her a place in my heart though I'm not so sure she realized it at the time.

When Tyler, our first child was born, neither Kris or I had much of a clue what we were doing. I had grown up in a family of just two children and it had been years since there was a baby in my family. The morning we brought Tyler home from the hospital Kris asked me to change his diaper. I was so green behind the gills as they say, having never changed a diaper in my life I had to sheepishly ask Kris to show me how. Being the sweetheart that Kris is she was very patient and showed me how to change the diaper.

None the less, we still had much to learn. My parents were all goo goo ga ga over Tyler, being he was their first grand child. However, as I mentioned, it had been years since they had had a baby in their home and had little assistance to render. They would come to visit and after a while it would be "ooh he poops too, well bye see ya later."

After a few very sleepless nights Deane came to the rescue. She sat down with Tyler and snuggled up like she loved to do with all of her grandbabies. She told Kris and I to get some sleep, which we did.

After several hours of some of the best sleep we had had in days I awoke to the smell of something burning. The previous Christmas some of our friends had given us some tin trays to put over and protect the heating elements on our electric stove when it wasn't in use. Deane had gotten up and put a pot of water on to boil. However, not being familier with our stove she turned the heat on to the wrong element, one of which she had not removed the tin tray. With in a matter of a few minitues the stove heated up and burned the paint right off of it. At the time she felt terrible about what had happened. I'm sure she felt like she had come to help and made things worse. She had no idea at the time that I was so grateful for the sleep that I came very close to pulling the last $20.00 I had out of my wallet and telling her to go buy another set of trays and to burn them too and to keep the change.

It was the only time she came to help with one of our new babies. But, at the time being our first child, it came as a huge blessing one that she may never know how much Kris and I appreciated.