After Christmas....

After Christmas wasn't the greatest of times. W found out my Mimi had Ben diagnosed with lymphoma. Lymphoma is a cancer the develops in the lymph nodes, and it requires chemo/radiator to treat it. There are several stages of this cancer, and thankfully we caught Mimi's in time to kill it. Her treatments started shortly after Christmas and continued on into May.
During this time, David never left my side. He was definitely my crying shoulder, and oftentimes the only person I felt that I had to lean on. He never complained about me wanting to stay around with my family, or go with Mimi to her treatments. In fact, he encouraged it. One of the things I love the most about him is how much he loves his own family. I love that he calls his family even if he is only staying in Mississippi overnight. I love that he gets excited to take me home with him to spend time together with his family - it is one of his greatest qualities, in my opinion.
David always asked about Mimi, always wanted to know how she was doing, and he always listened to me whenever I felt down about it.
My Mimi is my mom's mom. She is also one of my closest friends. She has helped me through every bump in the road of my life thus far, and she is the very one who encouraged me to go on my first date with David. She told me that, "You never know what may happen until you try it out for yourself and find out." On the day of our first date, she came over to see me before I left. She came up to my room and we talked about what David had been doing all day (planting fields on the tractor), and she told me time and again how excited she was about our date. When David got to town, he called me and told me where he was. I was smiling from ear to ear and Mimi mimicked my emotions as she sat across from me on my bed. When he pulled on, she looked out the window and the first thing she said was, "Oh my gooooosh, Julianna. He is SO CUTE!"

I couldn't agree more!

I say all of that to say this, I love her with all of my heart, and finding out she had cancer was such a devastating thing, but The Lord knew I couldn't be here without her. She is one of my very best friends. She is one of the first people I call when something goes wrong or right, and she either celebrates or mourns with me, depending on the situation. It is important to me that David understands the bond that we share, and thankfully he does because he too has a grandmother that he shares a similar relationship with. All in all, I don't know how I would have made it through without him on days when I couldn't talk to Mimi, and God really knew what he was doing when he placed David in my life at the time that he did. I will be forever grateful for that.