'best-est' just works sometimes ~

One of my sweetest, best-est (I know that is not a word, but it just works sometimes) friends in the whole world is my friend Dana. We just “get” the same stuff. Laughter is an accessory to us, and though we can escape to deeper thinking, it is almost always accompanied by humor paving the way. Humorous scenario's seem to become mile markers and memorials in the history of our friendship...this is one of those memorials ~

Dana is a diabetic, and has been since she was 15 years old. As with most diabetics, when she was pregnant, she was “high risk,” but her pregnancy developed some more serious complications and so she had to be on bed rest most of the time. She did get out every once in a while but it was usually in a wheelchair.

Well, one Sunday, she was dropped off at the door of our church and as she was getting out of the car she chose to leave her middle finger in the door as she shut it. No other finger was a casualty of this happening… just the middle finger (how that is physically possible is beyond me) …she whimpered a bit and made her way into the church service. I was not present for any of this but I come into the scene later…

Sooooo… she is sitting in church waiting for the service to start, and she begins to feel the pain welling up in her finger…and upon further investigation she notices that it is rapidly becoming the size of a link of Jimmy Dean Sausage. Well either the sight of this or all the blood leaving her head and going to her finger cause her to feel a bit “queasy” and so she got up and headed to the kitchen area behind the sanctuary.

Here the scene turns quite dramatic…You see, during Dana’s pregnancy she was like a “rare and precious pearl” to all who knew her…it was difficult for her to get pregnant, and then to top it off with her diabetes and high risk pregnancy…she was like a walking emergency room…drama ensued everywhere she went…(I think she kind of liked it...shhh)

Well I innocently made my way to the kitchen to refill my coffee before the service started and this is the scene I find…(get ready)… Dana spread out on the long Kitchen table…lying there on her back, hands folded across her chest as if she is in a coffin. It was like a scene from ER, there were people moving 90 miles an hour grabbing ice and fanning her and yelling frantically... “Get help…get help”

If I had not have been concerned for her pregnancy, I probably would have laughed out loud…(that is just the way it is with us) it was quite the 911…so I rush over to her to see if she is like in labor??? or in a diabetic coma ??? or bleeding about the head and face???…and to my surprise and relief, she looks at me, whimpers, and holds up her swollen middle finger and says… “I slammed it in the car door…it really hurts”…I think I actually laughed out loud while others looked at me in disbelief. Trust me, my “inappropriate” laughter, was accompianed by a deep relief... it was just a finger 911 and not a baby 911…not a Dana 911

For the rest of the service she remained there on the kitchen table. With others checking on her periodically (me included), and to this day when I picture her 4’11 frame with her 8 month tummy and her swollen middle finger lying flat on her back on the table in the very middle of our little church kitchen I laugh…If only I had brought a camera…I am sure the visitors that day were quite confused.

Well, that finger of her's still has a mark under the nail and her beautiful daughter is now 6 years old…I guess the drama was merited, but hey, even merited drama can still be comical...at least when it comes to the two of us...thanks for the laughs, looking forward to many more mile markers...they make the journey much more fun!