by Darlene Cah
Vicki Johnson’s life was going along just fine. She was the mother of one son, grandmother of five, and recent great-grandmother to a baby girl named Hope. She had also fallen in love with Al, a contractor who specialized in concrete work. Al was the brother of a girlfriend she’d known thirty years ago, and when Al moved back to the area of Washington State where Vicki lived, the pair reunited.
Soon the friends became a couple, got engaged and planned a long, happy future together. One thing Vicki, a semi-retired health care provider, never planned was to need to use her skills caring for her fiancé after he was diagnosed with cancer.
“His last wish was to marry me before he passed, but it wasn’t God’s plan,” Vicki says, “He passed away peacefully in his sleep the day before the Hospice chaplain was to perform the ceremony in our home.”
In her sorrow, Vicki turned to family for support. She moved in with her sister last September and, it was there she discovered INSP. In fact, all the members of her family are INSP fans.
“By watching the programs I grew up with, I cry the good tears.”
“That’s when I fell in love all over again. It’s got me through some hard times,” she says referring to INSP, “It has helped me immensely with my grief, as it reinforces the importance of love, faith, and family. It’s been a Godsend…kind of like comfort food.”
Vicki continues to cling to family, now living in the home her parents had owned. Her siblings purchased it in 2005 when their father passed away. Surrounded by the love of family and uplifted by her favorite INSP shows, Little House on the Prairie, The Waltons, and Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman, every day is a step toward healing.
“It helps me cry the good tears. After the death of somebody, you have all those bad tears. By watching the programs I grew up with, I cry the good tears. It’s been four months since Al passed and it’s getting better. That’s the help that it’s been. I’m getting the good feelings back, and the one thing that INSP does is it brings back memories, and it brings back the good memories.”
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