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Jo Henry remembers one moment from childhood that taught her everything she needed to know about her mother.
“We were in Tuesday Morning in Garland and this lady commented on my mother’s pearls,” Jo recalled. “And my mom just gave them to her.”
Jo said that’s a perfect description of who Pamela Evans is.
Pamela dropped out of school at a young age to help care for her siblings and cousins, her daughter said.
And through the years, she’s opened her home to people who had nowhere else to go.
“To total strangers,” Jo said. “And not asking for anything [in return] when she didn’t have anything herself.”
It was the perfect place to form a friendship built on faith.
“She’s really a God-loving person,” Karen said of Deborah.
But so far, 2021 has put Deborah’s faith to the test.
In January, her mother passed away after a long struggle with Alzheimer’s.
Deborah had been her mom’s caretaker for the last eight years.
Credit: Deborah Menezes
One month later came a cruel twist.
Deborah’s husband, Fred Burnette, had a sudden massive heart attack.
“The only blessing I have is that we were together,” Deborah said. “We’d just gone to bed and I told him I loved him.”
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Sometimes friends know us better than we know ourselves. They can recognize we’re in need before we even know it.
“Wendy is a very private person, so she doesn’t ask for help,” said Jill Malone of Wendy Maier, her best friend of more than 20 years.
“She’s given to me when I’ve had nothing. She’s given of herself and her time, and I wish I had more to give personally,” Jill said. “But it’s been a tough year.”
2020 has been a horrible year for so many, including Wendy, who recently escaped a violent marriage.
“Ever since then, she’s been trying to put the pieces of her life back together,” Jill said.