Casseroles_Cancer_and

She is just very fussy and thinks things should always happen in a certain way -
everything going according to plan, smoothly, with military precision. It's a lovely
thought, but then life happens, and when dealing with humans things often just
don't unfold that way, no matter how meticulously you plan.

The thing about Lisa is though, she has a heart as big as Texas,
and never, ever means to offend or hurt anyone's feelings with her schoolmarm
armed with a ruler ways. She is hardest on herself.
If she makes a mistake or drops the ball she practically becomes unglued.
Seriously, her whole body shakes and she looks like springs might start boinging out
of her at any second. It used to be funny, but now that we know it is a regular part of
her personality, it is not so funny at all.

I don't know what happened to her or what shaped her in to being
this way. Probably not something good.

When Jeanne had the cancer Lisa took the lead in arranging the casserole
schedule. As Lisa is the most fastidious out of all of us,
we happily turned over the responsibility to her, as clearly she is the most capable.
If anyone could make sure our friend got her casseroles in an orderly, timely fashion
it's Lisa.

One day Jeanne said "Hey, I didn't get my casserole today".
So I called Lisa to snitch on whoever spaced out and dropped the ball on their dinner
duties. "Tonight is my night, I made it myself and already dropped it off", she said
very defensively. "Ok", I said, and called Jeans back to let her know it was PB&J
night for them, because as much as I loved her, I'm not driving back in to town tonight.

Little did we know that the phone call had sent Lisa in to action.
She had become completely unnerved and terrified that her friends would think she
neglected her casserole duties. She left work, jumped in her car and zoomed over to
Jeans house to find out where that casserole was.
Had someone stolen it? Had a dog run off with it? She had to know.

She knocked on Jeanne's door and a strange woman answered.
"I'm here about the casserole" Lisa said.
The woman threw her arms around Lisa and started crying and thanking
her profusely. She invited Lisa in, and then the story became clear. The
woman's husband had just left her with two elementary age children, she was
working long hours to try to keep up with the mortgage by herself. The whole time
she couldn't stop crying or thanking Lisa. "Thank you", she said, "This has been
such a lonely time for me, and I felt all alone, and these casseroles have been turning
up on my door just when I feel too exhausted to cook.
I never knew who my casserole angel was, but you have helped me more than
you could ever imagine".    Lisa had been delivering and having casseroles sent
to the wrong address.   She told the woman all about Jeanne, and the mix up.

When Lisa told us she was clearly bracing herself for some kind of unpleasant
response. We fell out of our chairs laughing and I ended up having to breathe
through a paper bag. No one got a bigger kick out of it though than Jeanne though.
She said, "To tell you the truth, we are so sick of casseroles anyhow, please keep
sending them to her."    Lisa protested that she could not expect or tell people to
make casseroles for some stranger. But Jeans played the cancer card and said "I
have the cancer and that's what I want". So we all did, and for months we would all
fall in to shrieks of laughter ever time we heard the word casserole and Lisa learned
it was ok to not be perfect all the time and how to laugh at herself a little bit.

Wishing you all the best,

Momma

DISCLAIMER:
Lisa isn't really a bitch.
She is actually really sweet, kind & dedicated to making the world
a better place. I just said that to juice up the story a little bit.

Copyright 2007 Heather Maier

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