“A cheerful heart is good medicine.” ~ Proverbs 17:22
puddles’ mama
The first person I saw when I got to the funeral home for Shero’s service was Cheryl Gevedon Cravens. The chapel doors were still closed. I hadn’t gone in yet. Cheryl was signing the guest book in the hallway. This ol’ gal and I go way back, but she knew Shero really well, too. They worked together at EKCC for a long time. Before I started traveling and Cheryl married one of the most handsome men in the county, I used to spend loads of time with her and her parents over at Grassy Creek. Lord, we laughed till it hurt sometimes. The best one might be when her dog, Puddles, farted a big, stinky green fog fart, but we each thought the other had done it. It took a while before we figured out it was the dog. Cheryl shared laughs like that with Shero, too. So when I saw her standing at the guestbook that morning, I felt a huge relief. Not only was she one of my oldest friends and Shero’s, but she had recently lost her beloved mother, too. It’s a club nobody wants to join, though we all do eventually. She understood what kind of day I was about to have, and the kind of readjustment to life I was going to face the next day and the next day and the next. I went into the chapel alone, but when I came back out into the hallway, Cheryl was still there with a smile and a kind word. We then went in together, talked a bit more, and then she left me to my day. She was the kind of help I needed to get into the funeral life raft. I love her dearly and will always be grateful to her for that moment and for her many decades of friendship. I’m especially grateful for Puddles, the farting dog, God rest his little puppy soul.
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