Monday, October 29, 2012

Resilient and More, Lisa Triplett’s SPIRIT award revisited

SPIRIT Award
Supportive- charitable, encouraging, helpful, reassuring, thoughtful, understanding; all of these words describe my friend Lisa Triplett who is the adoptive mother of two of my grandchildren.
In a sense my oldest daughter handpicked Lisa and her husband, Rick to take care of her son, when he was a little baby, perhaps unintentionally. At a church fair, she recognized them from the church we all had attended. She was there with her little girl, and baby son and wanted to take her daughter on a ride.

“Could you watch baby Austin, while we go on the ride?” she asked Lisa.
Was that the moment that Lisa fell in love with my grandson? I don’t know, but circumstances happened to make it impossible for my daughter to keep her son, and the person she chose to adopt him was Lisa.

I was taking care of Austin as well as my own girls at the time and Lisa said God put Austin on their hearts; they wanted to care for him until his mother was able. We knew from attending church together that they had the gift of hospitality but we were surprised they felt so strongly it should extend to a little baby. Lisa even decided to quit going to DBCC to be there for Austin.

Was this God’s will for my grandbaby? Or were they angels sent to minister to my family by taking the pressure of an extra child off of me?
Five weeks later, Austin left our home and about two years later, Lisa and her husband, Rick, adopted him. You might wonder what is so amazing about this situation? Lisa is!
She was already quite the caretaker in her own right.
While working her way through college she worked at a church daycare center. There she met up with Brandi Triplett, the daughter of a boy she had dated in high school. Rick had been her first date but her mom felt she was too young (14) at that time for a relationship with someone two years older, so the romance was short-lived. Rick married someone else after High School and was divorced soon after, a single father with a little girl. Rick was now in the Navy out of state and his daughter was living with his mom and dad.
Rick and Lisa reconnected through Brandi, seeing each other, writing and by phone calls when he went back to the California base.

In 1985 he asked Lisa to marry him. Plans were made for a December wedding as he was being transferred from California to Jacksonville, Florida. One month after the engagement, Lisa received the devastating news; Rick had been in an automobile accident and was paralyzed from his chest down! It was Valentine’s Day.

Lisa and Rick’s mom flew to Jacksonville and from that moment to this, Lisa has rarely left his side for more than a few days at a time. In the first days at the hospital his heart stopped four times with Lisa by his bed in the dark of night. As alarms went off on the life-support machines, she prayed, begging God for him to survive. After several weeks he was stabilized and was moved to Hines, VA Hospital in Chicago, where the hours of rehab were agonizing for him. As a young man he had to adjust to a totally new way of life. As he lay on his stomach in a striker frame which caused pain in his neck, head and shoulders, Lisa would sit under his bed so he could see her and read, talk, play his music, and do all she could to help pass the time and supporting him in any way possible.

The biggest decision lay ahead; what about the marriage? Lisa was told that seven years was the average length for marriage to a paraplegic and she had to go through counseling, learning how to totally care for his personal needs and more.

Easter Sunday, 1985, in the hospital chapel they were married. Rick, still in pain, still unable to sit up in his chair, was in a partial reclining position in his black suit, gazing at his beautiful, radiant bride.

Lisa’s sense of humor is a trait that helps her be supportive to her husband; she joked about spending her wedding night in a motel room with her parents in one bed and she and her mother-in-law in the other. “I’ll bet I’m the only bride in history to spend her wedding night sleeping with her mother-in-law instead of her husband!”

There were years of outpatient treatment that still continue now; Rick is bedridden but with Lisa’s help and care he loves to get out and about in his wheelchair and specially adjusted van. He is a strong, vibrant Christian man who never complains and is a blessing to many.

Because Lisa is always supportive of Rick’s needs she left her family and roots and moved from their home in Indiana to Florida, as the cold weather is too hard on Rick. They had already visited the area when she took him to a fishing tournament on Lake Monroe in Florida for paraplegics. They found a handicapped accessible house for sale in Edgewater. Lisa continues to encourage Rick by taking him to church activities, football games, baseball games, music concerts and more.

Rick just turned 48 years old and has a full life because of the support of his wife. They have also adopted another one of my grandsons and truly have given them every advantage of a loving, Christian home.

In the past few years Lisa went back to college and graduated with a degree in Health Information Management; she juggled the boy’s and Rick’s care while maintaining high grades. Her parents moved down a few years ago, to give Lisa some much-needed support. She now works at Bert Fish, when she isn’t caring for, loving, doing field trips, shopping for, or playing with the boys, who are now eight and thirteen.
Donna Collins Tinsley

Remember this was written about five years ago as Austin will soon be eighteen and Jordan will be 13 next year Time has only enhanced the things that Lisa does for her family and church family. May her tribe increase!

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