My Dear Sweet Friend Sam

I have been a resident of a Senior complex for quite a few years now!  I have a lot of friends here but ONE stood out in front of the others!   It was because of her jolly spirit and gift of making you laugh that she did so!
She would walk up to our apartment building and sit on the front porch with us occasionally !  She would have us bending over with laughter! That was just her gift.  There was the one time she came out of Food Lion and as she started to open her door to get in, she found that the driver of the car besides her was parked so close she couldn’t get into her car.  She squirmed and tried to work her way in and as she was trying, the man came by and asked if she needed help! She said “No, but I’d like to know who taught you how to park that durned car”.
Another time, a fella moved into another complex below them and all the black ladies had their eye on him! Samantha included (I believe), although she would never have admitted it. But I just happened to be getting my mail when she was getting hers, and he walked in!  I never saw such a big smile on anybody’s face as Sam’s when she looked up at him. Everybody started teasing her about him and one day as she was visiting one of her friends she was talking about it and laughing!  Another lady was visiting and she said  “I’ll  have  you know that is my mother’s boyfriend”.  Boy we howled over that one!  I told her one day that he was a fine looking man and a few days later  my friend Libby and I were sitting on the porch and I was rocking  Libby’s  new granddaughter, who just happened to be bi-racial!   Sam walked up with a big grin on her face and asked  “Is that baby bi-racial?” to me. I said “Yes!”  and she said “Huh” and I said Yes again!  She looked so funny that we all just started laughing!  She said “Oh!  I’m so sorry! and that made it even funnier!”
Another time, we had quite a dry spell and it hadn’t rained for a good while. Then one afternoon it looked like it was going to rain and Sam went out to roll her car windows up and it started raining, so Sam just  started dancing. We all got such a kick out of that!  I made her a Cross Stitch about dancing in the rain! Then her druggist gave her some candy or something when he learned about it!
She was just one of God’s precious children and He gave her to us for a little while to help us find a little joy on our journey to be with Him some day!
Yesterday God reached down and picked our precious Samantha up in His arms and took her home. It won’t ever be the same here! That shining light has gone on to the place that God has prepared for all His children and she will be sitting there with that big smile on her face ,waiting for us when it’s our time to go!
As I sit here writing this, with tears streaming down my face, I’m so glad that now her suffering is over!  She has had a hard summer but I still wanted her to come back home from the hospital. My heart hurts so bad because I will miss her so much! She is with her son again, who died not long ago!  She is probably dancing all over Heaven!
Watch for me Sam!  I’ll be along one of these days and we can spend eternity laughing and talking, and maybe I will dance with you!  I’ll always love you, my sweet funny friend!