Sisterhood

Breast Cancer.

It could happen to any of us.  It has happened to one of us.  Our friend Lauren.  She used to live in our ward, but moved a few years ago.  She's still one of us.  She's a wife, a mother, a sister, a daughter, an aunt.  We all want to do something for Lauren.  We want to do something big, like eradicate cancer from the face of the earth.  In our inability to do something big, we're doing something small.

Lauren's sister-in-law, Heather is planning a garage sale/bake sale to help raise money for Lauren and her family.  (If you live around here, it's Friday and Saturday and Heather lives across from Monroe Elementary.)

I have been amazed (but not really) by the groundswell of activity associated with this sale. 

I ran into Heather and her family at Five Guys the other night.  (I love a woman with good taste.)  We talked about the sale and she told me she needs to create a spreadsheet to keep track of all the offers for help.  Women are posting information on facebook, spreading the word.  I have seen offers for cash donations.  I know women are gathering items to sell.  I know women are preparing to make their celebrated specialties for the bake sale; Anne her bread, Cynthia her mint brownies.

(I am trying my hand at cake pops.  For not the first time, I am trying to create a fancy new confection under the kind tutelage of Janet.   If you go to the sale, feel free to pick Janet's rather than mine...I'm pretty sure they'll be better.)

Lauren is young.  She's lively and spunky and has a fighting attitude.  I hope and pray she'll be just fine.    Meanwhile, I have sensed a tightening of ranks.  I've heard about some of the things women in Lauren's current ward are doing.  They're helping her with the dailiness of motherhood while she's going to doctors.  They had a garage sale of their own.  There's no hysteria or panic but quiet support and love and a steely strength.

A sisterhood.