Faith has helped Jay woman through difficult times

JAY — Faith has seen Pam Spaulding through the most difficult of times. She even named a dog Faith that she didn’t yet know.

“I don’t ever remember a time that I didn’t have faith and knowing that things will work out whether it’s what I expected or not,” said Spaulding, 68.

She is a substitute teacher in Regional School Unit 73 and has refereed field hockey games for 47 years.

One of the most difficult times was when her son Aaron got sick several years ago. She knew something was wrong.

One day two of her granddaughters spotted a sign at The Flower Barn in Jay about puppies. They kept telling her to stop and she did. She didn’t get a dog that day.

“I was worried about Aaron. It was not going easy,” she said.

Soon after she was driving to watch a game. “I was on Canton Point Road and I heard a voice: ‘Get a dog,'” she said.

“(God) had a plan,” she said. She decided she was going to get a dog.

“I had already named her Faith because without faith you have nothing,” Spaulding said.

The dog they had looked at was gone, but she found another one. “This one snuggled me and went right up my shoulder. So here we are,” Spaulding said as she petted Faith.

“Aaron loved her,” she said. Her granddaughters were excited, too.

Her son was born with hemochromatosis, a blood disorder that causes the body to retain iron. That, along with his welding profession and drinking habits, took its toll, she said. He had multiple overdoses with heavy metals.

While he was in and out of the hospital, she sat and prayed. It took a while and he would come back, she said.

The dog helped her through, always there to console her. “If she thinks I’m starting to cry, she’s right there,” said Spaulding, who has a bubbly personality and tries to stay positive.

Aaron became so sick that he was told in June 2012 that he had 60 days to live. Instead, he died at age 45 on Sept. 6, 2016, after developing pneumonia.

“He beat all the odds,” she said.

“The last month he told me he was tired and he was not going to make it,” she said. “I told him, ‘I know.'”

Spaulding credits faith, and Faith, for getting her through life’s most difficult times.

dperry@sunmediagroup.net