Picture of Aleta, Joe, Al, Fran & tour guide at Fantastic Caverns Springfield IL 1998

Aleta (my good friend) By Frances M. McCrory-Meservy January 1983-September 2005

I had to have back surgery because of the sciatica.  After surgery, I was put in a semi-private room with a really nice lady named Aleta.  She had fallen in the bathroom and crushed a vertebra in her spine.  She had to have back surgery to correct it.

We both smoked but Aleta chain smoked.  She evidently wanted the door to the room closed all the time but after a while you could not breath because of the smoke.  I was not allowed out of bed until a week after surgery so the fusion would have time to attach solidly so I asked Aleta if she would please open the door to our room so the smoke could be sucked out by the A/C system.  She hopped right out of bed and opened the door.

A nurse came running into the room jumping up and down going, "She's up!  She's up! How did you get her out of bed?  I was taken back and told her that I just asked her to open the door so we could breath.  Turns out Aleta had been in the hospital for a month and they had been trying to get her to get out of bed for 2 weeks.  God is so amazing.

Aleta found out I was a 700 Club prayer Counselor and decided I could help her.  She had been in and out of psychiatry hospitals and to therapists for years.  She was also an alcoholic.  She was also a Christian who had a strong faith and bore fruit all over the place.  She was the most loving person I have ever met.

I didn't know if I could help her but I knew Jesus could and knew I could be a friend who would listen to her and pray with her. 

We were released from the hospital the same day.  We talked to each other on the telephone at least once a week.  About a year after I met Aleta, we moved within a block of her.  We saw each other every day after that.  When we moved to the other side of Houston, we still talked to each other a couple of times a week and visited when we could.

When we moved to KS we wrote each other and talked on the phone about once or twice a month.  Aleta & her husband (Joe) came to visit occasionally and we visited with them in Houston when we could.  We all took a vacation together to Bronson & Fantastic Caverns in MO in 1998. 

When we were in Dallas we stayed in contact and they came up for a week-end and we would see them when we went to Houston.

Then we moved to MS and it was hard to get through on the telephone.  About a month before she died, I called and when Joe went to get her my phone died (we had lousy phone service after Katrina) and I could not get a connection until after Hurricane Rita.  I called and her phone was disconnected.  I called her son's house and her granddaughter told me she died the Tuesday before Rita hit.  She gave me Joe's cell # and I called him. 

Our relationship lasted from Jan 1983 when we were in the hospital until September 2005 when she went to be with Jesus.  She was probably one of the best friends I ever had.  Since she knows me so well, she's probably up there telling them exactly how to build my house and where to put it.

Mat 11:18-19 "For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, 'He has a demon. The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, 'Look, a glutton and a winebibber, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!' But wisdom is justified by her children."