An Easter Message

A letter.


I rarely check my post, easily irritated as I am by unsolicited mail with all its empty promises of a toned body, more pizza than all four of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles could ever stomach and a special offer indoor skiing machine at one of those German supermarkets.


But today, I did, and within I found a rare gem. A personal letter from someone I don't know but who knows my people. She is a wife and a mother of transplant recipients.


It is her daughter, Jeanne's story that she shares. It is similar to my own. Diagnosed in her twenties, long, dull days of needles prodding for veins and blood being cleaned out by dialysis.


The same feelings of frustration and a struggle to hang on to hope. But then surgery and a new kidney and the sensation of having traded in her old body for a shiny, new model.


But the story doesn't end with that. Enclosed in this letter is an added surprise. A photo. Caption: "Christmas '09 - Jeanne with her baby son, aged 3 months"


It is a happy story and it is a 'resurrection' that means more to me this Easter Sunday than any tale told down the road in the parish church.