I’m hearing that ticket sales for the fundraising concert for my sister, Ruthie Leming, are quite brisk. Great! People are so good to my family. Yesterday, a group of third and fourth graders showed up at Ruthie’s house to work in her yard. Isn’t that something? Ruthie, a Southern woman to the fingertips, is frustrated because she insists that she has to write thank-you notes to everyone who has given of their time and resources to her. That’s a good way to keep my sister fighting: do nice things for her, and she will beat this cancer because she probably can’t stand the thought of dying with thank-you notes unwritten.

(I’m only half-kidding.)
Several of you have been asking how you can donate to the cause if you can’t be at the concert Saturday night. The Bank of St. Francisville has set up a PayPal link on its website; scroll down on the left to see the link to the Ruthie Leming Medical Fund (and don’t miss the Ruthie Lindsey Sayle Medical Fund link too; the second Ruthie is the sister of my Ruthie’s magnificent doctor, Tim Lindsey; read this post of mine from a year or so ago to find out what Ruthie Lindsey Sayle suffered, and the kind of help she needs).
Anyway, if you can make it to St. Francisville on Saturday night, please consider joining everybody at the park for the show. Information here. As I’ve been writing here these past few weeks, the acts of love the people of our town have been giving to Ruthie and her family are absolutely awesome. It’s easy to think that places like this don’t exist anymore, and people don’t care like they used to. If you want to see what it means for a community to love its own, go to St. Francisville Saturday night, and be inspired.
I know Ruthie is planning to be there, but it’s just going to depend on her condition. Things are really, really rough for her right now. She’s so weak she can barely walk. The chemo load she’s carrying — real shock-and-awe therapy, five bags of the poison each session — is devastating her body. More than anything, she needs your prayers — and so do Mike and the girls, and our folks. Thank you.