Imagine Home’s Month of Gratitude, Day 15

On day 15 of Imagine Home’s Month of Gratitude, I’m immensely grateful for laughter. Without it, our world behind the curtains of Imagine Home would be a much darker place. Laughter has helped us grow closer, understand each other, and relieve our stress. Laughter has gotten us through transports that seemed to take months to plan. Laughter has gotten through our deepest transport planning nightmares, and allowed us to get up the next day and keep trying to help homeless cats.

My fellow admin’s stories are not mine to tell, but I can share my story from this past year. My husband’s father was hospitalized in May of last year, 2012. From that day on, my husband and I spent part of nearly every day at his side. Early one November morning, George died in his favorite recliner, and we rushed to be with Sue. Thanksgiving and Christmas were pretty grim, but by the time Spring rolled around, we were all beginning to live again, and smile. The Thursday after Easter, Sue clutched her chest and her heart stopped. My days since then have become a blur of estate planning and tears, broken only by a short vacation that flew past me in another blur.

The laughter part? The laughter came from the vacation planning, and then the vacation itself. I was gifted with the presence of some dear friends. My fellow admins gave up precious vacation time and scrounged together money to attend my August wedding. For four glorious days, I had most of my best friends by my side to make me laugh at some of the most idiotic things: there was the night that a June Bug flew into our rental house and landed on Jessica Koning. Jess picked it up and screamed “June Bug” and threw it directly into my cleavage! We all laughed until our sides hurt. One night, we all went to see Gary Sinise’s Lt. Dan Band in concert, and left the place starving. So we found an IHOP that looked like it was built in the 1960s. The place was crowded and we struggled to get a table to fit 8 of us. We were then served by the world’s worst waiter. Our orders were all botched, the service was slow, requests for water were ignored, and then the show started. What show, you ask? The manager and the cook started a shouting match that seemed to go on forever. Words were flung around, and there was a meat cleaver in the cook’s hand at one point. But instead of leaving the IHOP angry, my fellow admins, my sisters, all left the crazy restaurant with smiles on our faces.

That week I learned that love and laughter rei'll do anything to make you smileally can heal all manner of ailments. I think the late Audrey Hepburn said it best: “I love people who make me laugh. I honestly think it’s the thing I like most, to laugh. It cures a multitude of ills. It’s probably the most important thing in a person.”

Author: Noelle Sparks

Like many of my fellow admins, I knew nothing about pet travel until I heard the story of Jack the Cat. I was appalled to hear that there was no regulation requiring household pets to travel outside of cargo. I wanted to act, I wanted to do something tangible to give people options. With that one decision, I've found a group of ladies who have become sisters to me. Together, and with a whole lot of help, we're making a difference.

One thought on “Imagine Home’s Month of Gratitude, Day 15”

  1. you are the best…like I told you in a post last week, I feel like everyone here is my family! All of you are an inspiration to me………..

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