Monthly Archives: March 2025

Yesterday, Certain Man had the Minimally Invasive Lumbar Decompression procedure that he has been waiting for (for a very long time)! Over the last year, he has had several CT scans, numerous doctor appointments, steroid injections, Chiropractic treatments, Physical Therapy, and pain management consults that included epidurals, muscle relaxants, prescription and OTC anti-inflammatory meds, essential oils, lidocaine rubs, massage therapy, and he still struggled with debilitating pain.

Over these last months, it has been an increasingly difficult journey for this man that I love the most. He is not one to let anything stop him, and more than once I heard, “Hon! Someone has to do it. It won’t get done unless I do it. I know these things!!!” Even though I knew that people would be happy to help if he would just ask them, he was loathe to even try. (He’s a powerful determined and proud man). Night after night for almost eight months, while I rubbed those hurting legs and back, I prayed for resolution — for something to help him, and for relief from the pain and pretended not to see when he was fighting tears of pain, frustration and hopelessness.

About two months ago, after yet another referral, he met with Dr. Shachi Patel, a doctor of some renown here in Delaware who specializes in what they call MILD or Minimally Invasive Lumbar Decompression. The result was a scheduled procedure for over a month out, but this procedure held so much promise, and the success rate was in the 85% range.

Certain Man started counting the days. Time seemed to drag, and the last week was especially hard when he couldn’t have any NSAID’s at all, and the activity level was extremely high as we had chickens going out, and two funerals in eight days’ time. He was unusually quiet yesterday morning on our way to Elkton Maryland, where the procedure was scheduled to be done. I wondered what he was thinking, and I watched him out of the corner of my eye. His doctor had warned him that one of the possible results of this surgery was paralysis (along with other heinous outcomes, none of which impacted him quite like the possibility of not being able to walk). I knew that the thoughts and the “What if’s” were tumbling through his head, as he drove, and his face was a mixture of pain and quiet apprehension as well as hope.

We came into the Upper Bay Surgical Center, and the prayers of so many people seemed to wrap themselves around us and there was peace, The atmosphere in the center could not have been more welcoming, and the service couldn’t have been better. The nurses were cheerful, kind and efficient. The anesthesiologist was confident, happy and completely professional and Dr. Patel was on time and reassuring. Less than an hour after Certain Man went to surgery, he was back into his cubicle for recovery, and less than an hour later, we were on our way home with instructions to “take it easy for a bit, and no lifting of more than 10 pounds for at least 5 days.” (I made sure they told him and not just me)!

They said that he had to have a driver on the way home, but quite honestly, I think he would have been fine driving himself home. I kept my eye on him again, and it was obvious that he was already feeling a significant change in the pain level in his legs. He would move them gingerly and say, “I can hardly believe it. I don’t feel that pain!” Of course he had pain from the small incision, but the pain that has been his constant companion for a year? Greatly diminished.

We came home to the farmhouse at Shady Acres and Home looked wonderful. We spent a quiet evening, and this day had been extraordinarily ordinary.

Certain Man can hardly believe the results of this surgery! I heard him tell someone that “It’s the difference between night and Day!!! I can hardly believe it! It’s so wonderful!” He does have to take things easy, but and there has been no shortage of people bossing him. This has caused some resentful mumbling, but I finally said to him “Okay, then! I don’t think that I should be the one to be telling you what you can or cannot do. You heard what she said, and you want this to be a success. You are smart enough to know your own body and to listen to what it’s saying to you! I do not want the responsibility, and I don’t want to be faulted for being bossy!”

The good man seems to have heard me, and seems to be settling in to the suggested protocol for recovery. He’s doing so well, and I cannot get enough of hearing him tell people (who call to check on him) just how wonderful it is to have relief from that stabbing burning pain that made every activity such an effort. It’s a beautiful day, and it’s hard for him to see it slipping by without working in the yard or garden, but he knows that he doesn’t want to undo anything that has been done, and he is cheerfully subdued.

He is allowed to walk, and a few hours ago, he pulled on his slippers to go and fetch the mail. He was barely out of the front door when I heard him calling. “Hon! Hon!!! Come here and see this!” He was excited and I dropped everything to trot out to see what was so important. The crocuses were blooming their hearts out! Neither of us have ever seen them as glorious as they are this year!

“Ah, Sweetheart! I think they did this just for you!”

It’s a new day, and the future looks much brighter than it did just a week ago, and we are grateful!

For answered prayer, freedom from pain, for friends who love us and for spring crocuses, putting on a show, for these and so much more–

#myheartgivesgratefulpraise

Aunt Gladys

In the days since David asked me to do do a tribute to Aunt Gladys, thoughts and memories have been crashing around my head and heart.  What Can you say in five minutes or less about a woman like Gladys Irene Wert Yoder?

She was born to a school teacher Papa and a stay at home Mama. She inherited so much from her Papa.  A fine mind, the ability to teach, a love of music, and a sometimes-unconventional sense of humor.  From her Mama, she inherited her good looks, a culinary skill like no other, a love of her babies, and the ability to not only hold on, but triumph  when it felt like her world was crumbling beneath her and that life would never be okay again.

She may have inherited personality strengths through her genes, but there was a Grace that held her steady, and it never wavered. And it was she, saying “yes!” to that Grace, choosing to live in that Grace, that made all the difference in a life that could have been so different.

She was the fourth of eight.  It was The Depression, and life was hard. It was difficult to feed eight children on a school teacher’s salary, and at nine years old she went to work for an Aunt and Uncle to help out with their younger children.  She was often homesick and marginalized. The plan was for her to come home on weekends, but that sometimes didn’t work out and a little girl nurtured a sense of humor, learned skills, and came to trust a God that would walk with her through life events that would have stymied, crushed or destroyed many people.

She had a sister, just older than she, who became her confidant and also her sister in law when she married my Daddy’s youngest brother, Jesse, and moved to Delaware. 

Alene and Gladys.  Two peas in a pod. They had their own comedy show without trying.  Sometimes, they really were a hot mess! But they shared their deepest secrets, their acid disappointments, their broken hearts, their children and their shared memories of a childhood that, by today’s standards, was hard.  Aunt Gladys’s humor, sharper by far than my Mama’s, lifted burdens, made the hard days easier, and sometimes made husbands and children, nieces and nephews and even (maybe especially!) her own Mama, shake their heads.

There was a time when Uncle Jesse, Grandma Wert and Aunt Gladys were together, and Aunt Gladys said something that caused both Grandma and our very proper Uncle Jesse look askance.  I do not know what she said, and even if I did, nine chances out of ten, it wouldn’t bear repeating in this assembly. 

In any event, Grandma looked at Uncle Jesse and said, “I’m so sorry, Jesse.  I tried to raise her right!”

“It’s alright, Mama,” he said comfortingly.  “I’ve had her longer now than you did, and I haven’t been able to do anything with her, either!”

But quite honestly, neither Uncle Jesse nor any of us would have wanted her different than she was.  Besides always smelling so good, Aunt Gladys’s life was one of strength, vision, grace, forgiveness, and music.  But her best human quality was that she was full of love.  She loved God, Uncle Jesse, her family, her church, her friends, (not always in that order), but people in general.

Her love was a resource for my aching heart when there was no Mama for me to turn to.  Knowing she missed my mama as much as I did was comforting, and she somehow knew that I needed to hear the words of love she so freely gave.  Her welcoming smile and her hug and kiss were genuine and warm. In these last months, she was the one person who sounded disappointed when I answered the phone.

“Oh.  So, you are home.  I thought maybe you were on your way up here to visit us!  I prayed and prayed that you would come!”  (There is that’s one thing — She did know how to do what I call “The Lauver/Wert Woman Guilt Trip!”) but she never held the fact that we weren’t on our way up there against me, always ending every call with at least one, “Love you much!”

I never doubted it.  It was one of my anchors in a world that felt so out of control.  I knew that she, like all of us, would not be here forever, but I hated to think about it. In the days since she is “Over There” I’ve tried to think of the cloud of witnesses that were waiting for her, and of her joy to see and be with some of the people she loves so much. We know it was a glorious reunion, as she stepped from this body into the very presence of Jesus, free of the inconveniences and losses of this life.

But this past week, we sat around the table in that family dining room down Pleasant Cove Lane, and the voices were familiar, the laughter and the tears were present (as is common).  Uncle Jesse and most of her children and their spouses were there, and it was sweet. But there was a huge hole.

I felt it deeply, but somehow, it seemed that, If I listened hard enough, I could hear that cheerful voice calling back, “Love you much!”

I love you, too, Aunt Gladys.  I’ll see you in the morning.