The crazy cardboard sign with attached tin cans read: JUST MARRIED: DR. & PROF. MORROW. Four silly teens and their Florida cousins had snuck that onto the back of the newlyweds car. That was 36 years ago, August 4, 1974.
I talked to Mom DORCAS earlier today. Asked her how she felt today about the day she made her family membership official...we really gave you a run for your money didn't we!? Four teenagers--ready made family. Mom CATHERINE, our birth Mom, had died suddenly of a fast-moving cancer. Here was her college roommate whom we had known all our lives as her best friend, despite the fact that Dr. Dorcas had been overseas as a missionary doctor for most of our childhood, we knew that both Dad and Mom had a special place in their hearts for this courageous farm girl who went on to become a medical doctor with 4 specialties whose heart of gold and dedication to GOD were as sincere as her genuine Lancaster county apple pie and applesauce--her granddaughter's favorite.
Catherine & Dorcas had been college roomates one year. Their friendship continued and was especially important to Mom when we moved to Philadelphia in the 1960's where Dr. D was on a furlough to take a year of surgery at the Women's Medical College of PA. I can still see to this day those paper napkins my sister and I decorated with crayons--bright red cherries--it was George Washington's birthday...but then came Mom's story about how she and Dorcas were eating cherries in the dorm one night, laughing and telling jokes. Time had gotten away from them and sure enough soon the hall monitor was knocking on the door. Keep those voices down please...giggles...we're already on the floor...how much lower can we get !
It was no surprise that Dorcas rallied around us when Mom Catherine died in '74. It also came as a comfort that she who had just lost her own mother not long before came to the assistance of 4 children and a man without a mother or wife...she who had nothing but a missionary doctor's life up until this time...took on her toughest challenge yet--continuing to raise 4 children who missed their Mom as much as she missed her friend.
For the next 30 years Mom Dorcas and Ted continued to stand by Catherine's children and grandchildren, even adding one little surprise to the bunch when Dorcas was 47, Baby Brother Ben who now has a daughter of his own.
On January 25, 2004, Dorcas stood with Ted as he left this earth the say way TED had stood with Catherine when she left her physical existence. It was daughter Mary's birthday, a granddaugther's birthday, Grandpa Oscar's birthday and Great-Grandpa's birthday as well...
AND SO THE MESSAGE WAS CLEAR...PARTY, PARTY, PARTY...celebrate Life !
SO TODAY I called MOM Dorcas...we talked about everything we could remember and then some just like we do every day by phone. You could hear her smiling. My older sister calls her our bonus parent rather than a step parent. She has stood by us through everything !
AND NOW IT'S TIME FOR US TO STAND BY DORCAS. THANK YOU DORCAS.
YOU'RE THE GREATEST...and all because of your love for your friends.
When my father passed in 2004 I had a dream in which Mom, Dad and Mom Dorcas were sitting in an old fashioned diner, laughing and joking over a cup of coffee. Friends in Life. Friends in Death.
You never know what you're in for when you say: I DO ... til Death Do Us Party !