Kleenex Alert
WARNING: Kleenex alert. Ladies, this might cause your makeup to run. It’s also a lengthy newsletter.
I thought I should put the disclaimer at the beginning of this Savanna update because some of the “Savanna stories” I am about to share I can hardly tell without tearing up. I get better the more I tell them. I am just constantly amazed at the pure faith and joy that she possesses.
First, Savanna is doing wonderful. She has missed hardly any school since she recovered from her scoliosis surgery and we expect to have the next surgery sometime this summer. She continues to grow both spiritually and physically. I feel like sometimes I have a little Mattie Stepanek on my hands, although she is much more shy. I hope that she will “grow out of” her shyness, at least to some extent. We have finally found her a black puppy, something she has been asking for for several months. In fact she was telling me one day and I mentioned I had found a yellow puppy on the pound. “Bring the yellow puppy home” she said. Well, the yellow one was adopted before we were able to get back over there. I just kept praying and knew that God would bring along the perfect black puppy for Savanna. On Friday we brought home a black Lab mix from the pound. She is about 8 weeks old and Savanna named her Bo (Bo Bice), even though she is a girl. I’ll send pics of the dog as soon as I find where my husband put the digital camera. It’s been quite some time since I had a young puppy and how easily we forget the challenges of housebreaking. Ugh! But, she is just such a sweet little thing. Just precious with her floppy ears and big old feet that she hasn’t learned to navigate.
Savanna has quite a bit to say about Jesus and her angels lately; hence, the kleenex alert. I was invited to speak at the Saginaw Lions Club about a month ago. I told Savanna that they wanted to know all about SMA and Savanna and asked her what would she like for them to know about Savanna? Her answer was so simple: that Savanna is happy. I just got tears in my eyes and thanked the Lord for my happy child. She still insists that she is not silly; she is happy. I thought about that later. Of all the things she wanted people to know about her, she wants them to know that she is happy; not that she can’t walk or eat by mouth or play like other kids. Just that she’s happy. What a blessing!
A few days later as I was getting her ready for school she started talking about Jesus and her angels. She told me she had Jesus in her heart (no surprise there). I told her how wonderful that was and that she needed to share that with others and tell people about her angels (she still has 4 by the way). She looked at me and said, “You’re an angel, Mama.” The fact that any child would refer to their parent as an angel astounds me, but the fact that a 4 year-old thinks that really astounds me. Now both of these events happened in the same week. I just go to bed at night thanking God that for some reason He decided to bless us with this wonderful child. Now don’t get me wrong; she still has her 4 year-old moments. I told her last week I was going to sell her for a dollar. I asked her, “Who do you think will buy you?” She said, Mama. I said, “I’m trying to sell you; why would I buy you?” She then answered that Mr. Trent (her physical therapist who she thinks is hot stuff) would buy her. Onto that subject, I have never seen a 4 year-old as boy crazy as this child!!! I shouldn’t say BOY crazy; it’s more like MAN crazy. She seems to prefer the 20-somethings and really likes it if they have long hair.
She was thrilled, to say the least, that American Idol is back on. She will quickly tell you if she thinks someone is a bad singer and wants you to fast forward thru it. The first night it came on and I came home from Bible Study at 9:30, she was wired. I kept telling her she needed to go to sleep or she would be exhausted the next morning. Well she continued to just sing in her bed until about 10:30 that night. The next morning she could hardly keep her eyes open as I was getting her ready for school. I told her, “See, that’s why I told you to go to sleep.” She looked up at me and very matter of factly replied, “Well, I was happy.” Okay, so how do you respond to that? 
LOL
Last week was an eventful Savannaisms week as well. On Thursday while she was getting ready for school she said, “I know Jesus.” I told her I knew she did and that she needs to tell others about him. Then she said, “Savanna is going to Heaven.” “I know baby,” I said, with tears streaming down my face. “But Mama wants to go with you okay?” She just smiled and said Okay. On Sunday as we were getting ready for church, I explained that after we went to our church we were going to Mamaw and Papaw’s church for some baptisms. She said, “I want to go to Aunt Kelly’s church.” I assured her that Aunt Kelly, along with everyone else, would be at Mamaw’s church. I thought back to Christmas Eve when we went to our Christmas Eve candlelight service at our church. The plan was to go to ours first, and then to Northwood where Kelly (and Mike) and the kids go. I have to admit I was wanting to just go home after our service because the thought of loading Savanna up and unloading her again was already exhausting me; but she insisted that we go to Aunt Kelly’s church that night. I didn’t think too much of it until this past Sunday when she insisted again on going to Aunt Kelly’s church. Aha, she must have someone there that she wants to see. Being the boy-crazy child that she is, I’m thinking she must have some little boyfriend that I don’t know about. I have to admit it’s a stretch since we only go to Aunt Kelly’s church for special services. Savanna doesn’t know any children there.
I asked her, “Is there someone you want to see at Aunt Kelly’s church?” She said yes. I asked her who it was and she said, “Angel”. I asked her if there was an angel at Aunt Kelly’s church and she said yes. Well I thought, surely we have one at our church as well. Nope. I took that matter right to the Associate Pastor and asked him to put that on the staff meeting agenda! We do have angels by proxy at Center Point since Savanna’s 4 angels travel with her and go to our church with her, but it seems that Northwood has it’s own resident angel. So I asked her some more questions:
“Where is the angel?”
“Up.”
“Up by the ceiling?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Is it a boy angel or girl angel?”
“Girl angel.”
“Do you see Uncle Mike when we go to Aunt Kelly’s church?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Is Uncle Mike an angel?” Now I have to clarify myself to all of you. I KNOW that my brother is not an angel. That’s certainly a word I never used to describe him while he was alive and I realize that angels are Heavenly beings that are not people. I was just trying to make Savanna explain to me. So, her answer to that question was no.
“Where do you see Uncle Mike?”
“Up.”
“Up by the ceiling, like the angel?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Does Uncle Mike see you?”
“Uh-huh.”
“What is Uncle Mike doing when you see him?”
“Singing.”
Now there’s where the tears come gushing out. For so many reasons. First, just that we all miss Mike so much. I talk to Savanna about him all the time because I don’t want her to forget him. He died right before she turned 3. Secondly, it just warms my heart that she has this gift to see angels and to see her Uncle Mike in a place that he loved to be in. And lastly that she sees him singing, praising God. Now this one is hard for me to wrap my brain around. I know that the Bible talks about what Heaven is like. There are no tears in Heaven; our days will be filled with SINGING and laughter; praising God. I know that Savanna does not know that yet, at least not from the Bible. At this age, most of her Bible stories are about David & Goliath and so on. Not about what it is like in Heaven. So I ask myself, does she have a window into Heaven? Does she take trips there? Or is it that she just sees Uncle Mike here? Questions that I guess will be answered when I can join him there in Heaven.
I find myself asking her about her angels all the time now. It is so comforting to me as her mother to know that she sees them and that they bring her comfort. My prayer now is that God would allow me to see her angels. Every time I think she has really outdone herself, she surprises me again. I just can’t imagine what kind of stories she will share with us 5 years from now; 10 years from now. She will definitely have lots of stories to tell.
As for the other Rushes, life is busy as usual. I decided (or God decided) that I should go back to school. I felt the calling back in fall to go back to school and get my nursing degree. I say it is a calling because I never in my life wanted to be a nurse. I always loved sciences, but I never saw myself as a nurse. But I feel called to do it now. I think it would help me better understand SMA and the science of it and how it affects her body, but just as important, I want to be able to minister to families that go thru some of the things we have been thru with Savanna. Let’s face it, we’ve BEEN there. We know the emotional roller coaster. I figure it will take me somewhere between 3 and 6 years to finish, but those years will go by anyway. I might as well do something productive with those years. I plan on keeping my Curves business for about 5-6 more years. I would like to just work about 2 days a week when I do graduate. The nice thing about nursing is that you have the ability to just work part-time or prn if you want to. I thought I would be way ahead of the game since I already took Anatomy & Physiology and Microbiology years ago, but you have to have taken them in the last 5 years for the nursing program. I’m taking Chemistry this semester and plan on taking another Psych class this summer and maybe one of the Fine Arts credits that I will need. I figure it will be at least a year until I can begin the nursing program and could be longer. Since I haven’t been in college for about 8 years, I thought I would just take one hard class and try to master these sciences one at a time.
The other Rush has bought a snowcone business. As if we didn’t have enough going on. Now I say HE because I have told him that I don’t have time to help run that business. I’m a little busy with my own business, working, going to school 6 hours a week, studying and taking care of Savanna. Oh, and the fundraiser and the new puppy. He came home on a Tuesday just talking about someone at FedEx opening their 2nd snowcone stand and by Friday we had purchased a snowcone business right here in Saginaw. It literally fell into our laps. You know us; we just fly by the seat of our pants. Hold on tight; things are about to get crazy!!!! Please pray that I don’t kill him in the process. For those of you that know him, he tends to get a little “wound up” about something when he is excited and I find myself trying to bring him back down to planet Earth where the rest of us reside.
One last thing, we now have an official Texas chapter of Families of SMA. We held our 1st meeting a few weeks ago and it was wonderful. We had 25 people come, representing 8 SMA children. We really enjoyed getting to meet the other families and just talk about what we can do as a Texas chapter. There are over 200 SMA families in Texas that are registered with FSMA. One of our top priorities is trying to get some information to the neurologist offices so that when a family receives the devastating news, they can get some kind of written information to take home with some local family contact. I know that for us, that was a Godsend. I know how comforting it was for me to be able to talk to other SMA parents who understood how difficult this was. FSMA is also going before Congress to try and get SMA as one of the newborn screening tests. Research has shown that if a child is started on a drug therapy trial before they show symptoms, it seems to slow the progression of the disease.
I think that covers everything from the last month. And I always think I don’t have that much to tell. Oh, Savanna got her communication device. Right now it is just programmed to work her DVD player, but she loves it. It has a little computer with a clicker that allows her to operate her DVD player. The first time she has ever had any independence in controlling her TV. Woohoo! Please continue to pray for continued healing for Savanna and for Tim’s newest business venture. He’s already talking about opening a 2nd one if this one is successful. Let me just say this will NOT take the place of his FedEx job. This is just a side gig! Also please pray for me for time management with all that is going on right now and for my brain to absorb all this Chemistry information so that I can do really well in this class!
Love,
Mindy
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