Friday I didn't post.  I was getting a new pacemaker.  It's done.  I don't have to fret about it any longer.  I told the surgeon (before they drugged me), "I don't care if you kill me.  Just don't let me throw a clot and have a stroke."  He promised he wouldn't let that happen.  It wouldn't have been such a big deal if they were just going to replace the battery, but they had to replace the whole thing.  Which made me wonder what was going to happen in between taking out pacemaker #1 and putting in pacemaker #2--since  I don't have any beats of my own--what was going to keep me beating in the meantime.  I still don't have the answer to that.  But everything went well.

I don't have to do that again for 7 or 8 years.

On the way back to Edmond, I told Becky, (who drove me to Tulsa) "I don't know why I have missed your dad so much these last few days.  She said, "Mom, he was the gravity in our lives."

I think that is the best word I have ever heard to describe Ken.  Gravity.  He anchored us.  Becky went on to say that he once told her, "Your mom was built for speed.  But you are built for service and long wear."   (Like him.)

Ken never said very much.  But when he did, everyone listened.

Gravity, and speed.  We fit together like a hand in a glove.   I told you last week that I just wish he had been here to tell me everything was going to be alright.  Well, I got an e-mail from my good friend Becky Bacon and she answered that post, "Janie, everything is going to be alright."

Friends.  They lift us up.  Becky Bacon took care of Ken the last weeks of his life.  She's a nurse.  Nurse "extraordinaire."   And friend.  Friend extraordinaire.  God has blessed me with family and friends. Those are what really count.