Remember earlier this week, when I told you about Jenna Louise?

Well, this is Louise.

Louise Efnor will be 92 this month. She swims at the Y. She leads Bible studies at her apartment building. She makes it to our little church in the country nearly every week. She will witness to the power of Christ in her life to anyone who will listen – including a hospital orderly. She volunteered at Faith Bible Camp for something like 40 years or so. Generations of campers still call her Grandma, because of Bible Time with Grandma. She gave my husband the Bible he still uses and, though it's falling apart, refuses to replace.

We are not related to Louise by blood, but by friendship and by love. She and her husband built the house where my family now lives, just a quarter mile or so from my in-laws. For years as a young boy, John trekked across the waterway to hang out with Pete and Louise, his neighbors and adopted grandparents. Then in the early 1990s, Pete came down with cancer. By 1995, they were ready to move to town, closer to family and to the hospital. They sold their place to John, who'd just graduated from U of I. This house and this location, just across the field from their grandparents, has been one of the greater blessings in my young family's life.

When I was pregnant with Jenna, we wanted her to have a name with meaning. We chose Jenna, mostly because I liked it and it reminded me of a sweet little girl I used to ride the bus with. But we chose Louise because it invokes thoughts of a woman with a Godly heritage, who is running the race well and whose life we want to emulate. It's a total side benefit that John can call Jenna "Wheezy." And she loves it. And no, I don't expect that to continue forever.

I will not, ever, forget calling Louise, just hours after Jenna was born, to tell Louise of her name. John sat on the hospital bed with us, and held his cell phone so I could hear, as he shared her name. "Oh," she said. And then, "OH!"  And then she started to cry.

And in the eight years since, Louise has hardly missed the opportunity to come to a birthday party or to introduce Jenna as "my little namesake." We love her so much, and are so grateful for her legacy.


Thanks & Giving Day 20: Cousins