Prayers for Our Friend . . . and Yours

I am home after a whirlwind weekend in Georgia and Florida.  And I will devote two or three posts over the next few days to everything we encountered.  But one thing I learned took my breath away and is so important that I want to share it in a post of its own.

A lot of you know Ellen from Tessler Stamps & Stencils – I took this picture last year after she caught a shoplifter at the show in Indianapolis.  Ellen is such a sweetheart and I love her dearly – and in the past few weeks her life has been turned upside down.

I stuck my head into the Friday Night Make & Take in Clearwater and another vendor said “Did you hear about Ellen?”  I knew that Ellen wasn’t in her usual spot at the show in Grapevine, Texas last month (her sister Cristina and Cristina’s husband Mickey were) but I didn’t think anything of it.  But I got bits and pieces of the story in Clearwater and then confirmed them with Cristina yesterday in Lawrenceville, Georgia.  And she gave me permission to share the story.

Ellen is fighting for her life – she suffered a brain aneurysm about the first of the year.  She spent quite a bit of time in intensive care and a portion of her skull was removed to relieve the pressure – and it won’t be replaced for a couple more weeks.  Cristina told me that we almost lost Ellen a couple of times, but she is a fighter and wants to live.  And she will have to learn how do talk, walk and do almost everything we take for granted all over again.

And she will have to do it with a heavy heart – 20 days after the aneurysm, Ellen’s husband Brian died unexpectedly.  I don’t have a picture of Brian, but you may remember him as the guy in the cowboy hat running the cash register while Ellen demoed and tended to customers.

Ellen’s sisters (I think there are three of them) are looking out for her, and another vendor suggested that we pass the word so her friends and customers can shower her with prayers and cards of support.  What we’re looking for here are “Get Well Cards” – not the Sympathy variety.  Ellen is looking forward and needs our support as she fights to return to us.

Ellen Sedgwick
8814 Prichett Dr.
Houston, TX 77096

Thanks!

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Addendum: After I wrote this post on Monday afternoon, I also put it on our Facebook page.  Facebook tracks how many people have seen individual posts – most of the time, one of our Facebook posts will be seen by several hundred people.  As of noon on Tuesday, Ellen’s story has been shared over 130 times and seen by over fifty-three thousand people!  I am simply overwhelmed by the power of social media and the support our friend is receiving.  Well done, folks!