30 Days of Thanksgiving: Day 29

Today I am thankful for a group of women that I fondly refer to as “the church ladies”. After my dad passed away in 2003, my mom began spending more time with her friends at church, i.e., the church ladies. Some of them were fellow widows, some were divorced, some were currently married, and some had never been married. But they all had two big things in common: they loved God and they loved each other. They attended Bible study together. They got together once a month for lunch to celebrate birthdays. And they all became huge fans of my theatrical career.

I forget which show it started with, but at some point in time my mom mentioned that she was going to see a show that I was in and it turned into a church ladies’ outing. I think they were all quite tickled to be able to tell fellow audience members that they knew someone in the cast. They loved to linger at the stage door after a performance waiting to see me, and they loved telling everyone in the cast just how much they enjoyed the performance. Before long, every time I did a show, the rest of the cast wanted to know which performance the church ladies would be at, because they just loved having such adoring fans in the audience.

And not only were they adoring fans of my performances, they were adoring fans of me as a person. I don’t know who was more excited when Herb and I got engaged: me, my mom, or the church ladies. And as proud as my mom was when Ryan was born and she finally became a grandmother, there was a whole bunch of adopted grandmas who were nearly as proud. And when Katie was born after my mom passed away, she inherited that same bunch of adoring grandmas.

I regret that I haven’t kept in touch with them the way I would like since Katie was born. But I know that my whole family is constantly in their thoughts and prayers, and they are certainly in my thoughts and prayers as well. So I am thankful for Jean, Muriel, Priscilla, Arlene, and all the wonderful church ladies who have been such a loving part of my life.

Three things I am thankful for today are pumpkin pie, cranberry sauce, and turkey gravy.