Happy Birthday to the Buena Vista Flash

It turns out that three really special people in my life share this day, May 25, as the day of their birth. My son Patrick, the fearless leader of our small group at Hope Church, Chip (the Chipster) Hewette, and my dear friend, Pam Cole, the Buena Vista Flash. Regular readers of this space know Pam as the woman who was given a scary cancer diagnosis nearly two years ago now. Back at the beginning I made a promise that I would send her Dad Jokes every day until she got better. These jokes served several purposes, but primarily it gave me an excuse to chat with her every day. More importantly, it served as excellent training, serving as it did to toughen her up for the difficult days of chemo. She figured that if she could endure three of my jokes every day, how bad could chemo be?

On her birthday I would like to acknowledge her epic victory over the insidious enemy of cancer. While there may be no such thing as “back to normal” as a cancer survivor, Pam has made it through every phase of her treatment like a boss and is now getting back to the business of living her life. Along the way she has been carried along by an amazingly devoted husband, two wonderful kids and a bunch of grandchildren who think that she hangs the moon. She has also benefitted from a team of supporting and loyal friends. She has benefited from the skills of a team of brilliant doctors and nurses at UVA. But an awful lot of readers of The Tempest who have never even met her have spent much time praying for her recovery. You have asked me for updates on her condition and have eagerly kept up with her progress. I thank each and every one of you for that.

So, I warned Pam that I was going to embarrass her with a Facebook birthday salute via The Tempest, and asked her to send a current picture. She said she didn’t have any good ones, her hair is still too short, yada yada yada... but she finally sent this one which was taken this past Sunday before she and her grandkids and Johnny headed out to the lake for the day...

Trust me, underneath the brim of that cap are two very happy eyes!