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It has been a tough week around here.
Tommy Weir, Donya’s dad and the patriarch of our family, had a scary episode with his heart a few weeks back. A couple of days ago, he received a call from his doctor with the results of the MRA (arteriogram) performed last week. The news was not good. There appeared to be a dangerous enlargement of a major artery, one that was already enlarged and had been treated medicinally for the past 20 or so years. It looked like surgery was imminent. All that was needed was a visit to the heart surgeon and his confirmation of such.
Tommy is 83 years old in November.
Despite being blessed with incredibly good health, the notion of undergoing open-heart surgery for any octogenarian is cause for concern and Tommy was concerned. So were we all!
We spent Thursday evening with Tommy and Mary Lou, his beautiful wife of more than 60 years. Donya’s sister, Felicia, and her husband Jimbo were there, as was our youngest, Lacey. We ate dinner, laughed, told stories, and concluded the evening with a prayer circle. An ominous cloud of concern hung over the proceedings, the way a thunderhead on the horizon threatens a perfect Summer day. I felt a shadowy sense of dread walking among us.
We knew Papaw would meet with the doctor the following day.
The doctor visit occurred yesterday, Friday, September 20, 2019. The appointment took place at 2 PM.
But let’s back up to yesterday morning at about 7:30, when my phone rang. On the other end was my father-in-law. When I answered, he didn’t bother with “hello” or “do you have a minute” or “how’s it going.”
Instead, he started the conversation like this…
“Gene, I tell you, God is so good. Sixty years ago, when Memaw (his wife’s nickname since Donya and I introduced the first grandkid to her more than three decades ago) and I were in bible college at Tennessee Temple, things were so tight. Memaw had a job that paid about a dollar an hour. I was a bellhop at a hotel, making 60 cents an hour plus tips. I lost my job. I told the Lord I didn’t know how we were going to make it and I might just have to quit and go home.”
I paused my already-busy day’s work to listen to this second father of mine pour out his heart. There was obviously a tear in his voice. He continued…
I was reading my bible, searching for answers when I came across Isaiah 26:12, ‘Lord, thou wilt ordain peace for us: for thou also hast wrought all our works in us.’
After a brief pause, he continued, “I said to myself, ‘That’s it, right there! That’s my answer.’ Gene, I took that as my life’s verse. God took care of us and I did find a job. He has taken care of us all these years since.”
I agreed that He had done just that.
“You won’t believe it, but I was sitting in the guard shack this morning (Tommy, in his retirement, continues to work as a security guard and parking lot monitor at South Grand Prairie High School) and opened my bible and it opened to that page! Right there, I saw my life verse underlined in red.”
“That’s amazing,” I acknowledged.
“God is just reminding me. It’s going to be alright, son. Whatever God does is going to be just right. He has taken care of me for 83 years. I am at peace no matter what the doctor says today.”
I don’t remember what I said. I was too focused on what he was saying.
What I do know is that the next time he called me, as he was leaving the doctor, he was elated.
“The doctor says that the enlargement is not that bad and he does not recommend surgery. He says I need to keep doing what I am doing. So, that’s what I am going to do.”
“Praise God,” I answered.
“Everything is going to be alright,” he said for the tenth or twentieth time this week.
And it is…even if it isn’t, because that’s how God’s peace works.
