| Ash Wednesday -Abby's Story |
| Ash Wednesday -Abby's Story |
I’m Abby McGurran-Hanson. I’ve gone to St. Joan’s with my family all of my life. Thinking about the story of Abba and the leper made me try to think of when I was helped by someone even if like Abba they really didn’t have time and it inconvenienced them. What I came up with was the time in my life that has changed it the most so far. Four years ago, my dad died unexpectedly. Some of you may have known him, Bob Hanson, he was the guy who played bass in Family Mass and sang in Cabaret and sometimes in the Gym.
After the funeral everything finally started to die down for us, what we didn’t know was all our friends and family were just gearing up to set off on a new mission, make life easier for the McGurran-Hanson’s. There were cards coming all the time, flowers too. There were so many flowers they filled up a whole room in our basement. But those were only small things; their large scale attack of course began with food. For about two months, everyday we would get a meal delivered, it became part of my schedule for when I got home from school to unlock the door to get the mail, pickup the food waiting on the steps, and then let the dog out.
Part two of the mission, fix our house. For years my parents had wanted to renovate our house (they probably had been complaining longer), we had put an eight foot edition to the back of our kitchen. At the time half of the tiling on the floor was done, the kitchen was unpainted, our upstairs was waiting to be re floored and the basement was waiting to become my older brother’s bedroom.
Everyday for about a week my Grandpa and my uncle would drive over from Amery Wisconsin, to do what they could, they tiled the floor, built part of a new wall; they even fixed the hole in my little brothers room from where he swears him and his friend weren’t wrestling. Like I said that was the beginning. Next the upstairs. My mom’s co-worker Dan and my uncle Joe took on the task of taking out the carpet and laying down Pergo on our floors.
But the biggest surprise we got was coming home from a questionably well spent weekend at Grief Camp, and finding a whole new bedroom in our basement for my older brother. At the time, I didn’t even really think what went into it I was like “sweet, when can he move”? My little brother called it our own extreme makeover home edition, but better. Thinking back on it all I realized all these things that people did for us took a lot of time and effort. And this wasn’t something they had to do. They decided to spend the time and effort on us. My mom said they were the ones who kept us afloat, and kept us going. Like Abba they carried our burdens for us.
This is my story and through it I have learned how important it is to have someone carry your burdens with you.
Ash Wednesday Stories |