If I had died in surgery my last words would have been. . . “chocolate chip.” It all began with terrible pains in my abdomen. After three days, my dear daughter-in-law accompanied me to the ER where I spent 6 hours having tests and talking with nurses, aids, even a doctor. They all noticed an angry looking deep burn on the inside of my arm. Days before, the stove door hit me in the arm as I was baking lemon cookies. [It was a new recipe and I wasn’t impressed until I dipped them in lemon glaze.] In the ER, when I said I received the burn while baking lemon cookies they were puzzled. “Lemon cookies?” they asked, incredulously.  I received this response several times.

By evening, it was determined that I had atypical appendicitis. [I was so glad—I’d hate to have the regular run-of-the-mill appendicitis.] I was wheeled into the operating room at 10:00 pm. They were putting needles in my arms and the mask was coming down over my face. They exclaimed about the burn. When I told them it happened while baking cookies they asked what kind. In a split second I decided to tell them what they wanted to hear. I wanted them to be happy during surgery, so I answered, “Chocolate chip” just before the mask came down. Sure enough I heard one of them say, “My favorite kind of cookie.” Thus I set forth on a rocky trail strewn with pain medicine and lime Jello.

While in recovery, I caught up on e-mail. We had received a letter that Gus continues to minister in South Africa. “Who is Gus?” you might ask. He was one of the first of the large puppets my mother (Puppet Maker Extraordinaire) made. These puppets are the size of an adult (from the waist up—the puppets have no legs or feet. Yes, it’s the “agony of de feet”). My Mother made Gus from an end piece of long fake fur in a bright pink. He was christened at a weekend camp. We had a contest to name this huge pink puppet and the top two names were “Big Pink Thing,” and “Gus.” I’m so glad the name “Gus” received more votes! As it turned out, over the years Gus became the kids’ favorite puppet. He’s been cloned six times. It was one of those puppet clones who made the long trip to South Africa to join the team “Puppets ‘n Praise Afrika.”

Years ago we had been invited to minister in South Africa, but we couldn’t go at that time. However, we did spend a total of four months in the Philippines. We loaded two large trunks full of puppets and a heavy box containing the puppet stage (this was before we were smart enough to use canvas bags). Those ridiculously heavy trunks made many Jeepney rides. [Google Philippine Jeepney to see the colorful jeeps the creative Filipinos elongated.]

The Filipinos are the most hospitable people. They would eat nothing but rice for a week, just so they could buy food they knew we Americans would like. Anytime we set up the puppet stage, crowds of 500 or so would gather. The puppets created great excitement wherever we traveled in the country. Once the crowd that gathered to see the American puppets blocked off two streets.

In Manila the public schools were opened to us. In our programs we had from 2400 to 3600 children standing at attention in the hot afternoon sun, seeing and hearing the good news about Jesus. For about half the programs, interpreters were needed. One man who interpreted became so involved he started to imitate the voices of the puppets, making his voice high and squeaky or lowering it, depending on the puppet’s voice. Another man was to interpret the puppet’s question, “How DO you get to heaven?” His interpretation went on and on. We found out afterwards that instead of interpreting the sentence, he was actually explaining to the kids how to get to heaven. He realized his mistake and ended his explanation with the original question.

Although these were all public schools, each parish Priest felt that the public schools in his parish “belonged” to him. We were told that he didn’t want any of the children singled out, but we were given permission to encourage all the children to make a commitment to Jesus. At the end of each puppet program, we led thousands of children in a prayer of salvation. Because we stayed within the guidelines, we had an open invitation to minister in every public school in Manila.

On the home front, here we are living in an apartment underneath our son, daughter-in-law and 12 children. 10 of them are official grandkids (related by blood, by adoption or by guardianship) with two little girls who fall under the category of “temporary custody.” Little Makeena is two years old. She wanted to play catch with a balloon, so over and over Gramps would throw the balloon to her, but she would walk back up to him and carefully hand it to him. She knows instinctively that her Gramps has physical limitations.

Yes, we continue to walk the Parkinson’s Path. Ron now uses a walker at home, but uses a wheel chair when we go out. His speech is very soft. The other day I asked Ron a question and because he was standing right in front of me, he just whispered the answer, without bothering to take a deep breath and push his words out.  I gave him a very stern look and said, “Don’t you whisper at me!”  He broke into instant laughter.  He kept laughing because apparently my stern face struck him as hysterically funny.  At least I gave him a laugh.

When Ron was first diagnosed with Parkinson’s, one of his malapropisms definitely fit: “When the bottom’s been pulled out from under you.”