Maria Shriver

Margaret Terry

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Blog Posts

• December 19, 2012

  A Woman's Experience

  

  My Christmas Miracle

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  Late afternoon that Christmas Eve, I paced from room to room opening and closing closet doors, searching everywhere like a mama dog that had recently lost her pups to adoption.

  I don’t know what I was looking for because the only thing I wanted had just driven away with their dad. My sons, Michael and Patrick were spending their first Christmas at his new house. I was spending mine alone.

  I wandered into the kitchen to start the tea kettle and noticed our cat in a tangled mess on the hardwood floor. Mittens had knocked down one of the Christmas cards taped to the kitchen door.

  She was in a frenzy trying to shake off a small card stuck to her forepaw and the more she jerked and twisted her paw, the more tangled up she became. I sat on the floor murmuring sweet nothings until she stopped flailing and I could help peel away the tape.

  The card was from my new pastor, Ruth. I had received it that morning mixed in with Christmas greetings from the gas and electric companies who wished me a joyous season even though I owed them money.

• December 7, 2012

  A Woman's Experience

  

  The Lasting Power of Letters

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  I never planned on writing Deb stories about my wild and messy life. Deb was a church friend I’d known for six years, but outside of church we knew little about each other.

  I knew she loved red wine, Motown, and the Buffalo Sabres, and she knew my greatest dream was to write a book.

  I had been a storyteller since I was six years when I made up stories to keep my younger sisters quiet so my mother could sleep. Mom slept a lot after receiving her electroshock therapy treatments.

  When Deb announced her diagnosis of stage 4 inoperable lung cancer and asked me for encouraging words, I had been thinking of bringing her casseroles. I didn’t know the food Deb needed was stories until I began writing them.

  The first few days after her announcement, I emailed Deb Pollyanna snippets, hopeful little notes about having faith and hanging tough.

  My letters changed the day she received the news she had a brain tumor that had to be removed before her lung treatments could begin. I felt dizzy thinking about how terrified she must have been to have two cancers to fight.