I haven’t written anything in a long while but what I am writing this morning is so near and dear to my heart.

You have to know how my Dad was to really appreciate this article.

As I grew up it was football continually in our home. My dad lived, breathed, and shared football. If he was in the house that is pretty much what we watched with a little of Porter Wagner, Dolly Parton, Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs and of course Bonanza on Sunday nights.

My brother was groomed and trained from a toddler to love football and my sister and I loved it as much but knew it was not our destiny.

This past week I received a phone call that has given me more excitement than I have had in a long while!

On Friday night, September the 6th, my brother will be inducted into the Livingston Academy Football Hall of Fame here in our little town of Livingston, Tennessee.

You may think, “So, what makes that so special?”

Of course my brother played football in high school because that was a given. Having the Dad we had it was no other way. My brother didn’t get to play that much but Dad was always there watching, not only at games but also during the practices. Dad would sit mostly in his car on the hill overlooking the field and watch and later give his take on what my brother could do to improve his game. During my brother’s junior year he only started 2 games as the man that played in front of him was a senior and got to start most every game.

As Robert entered into his senior year, Dad was still going to practices and feeling like this would be Robert’s year to shine.

My husband was in the Air Force and we were stationed in Georgia but had come home that month of August 1974 to spend some much needed relaxation. Mark had saved up his vacation days and our plan was to be home for about a month. Both our families lived on the same road and were neighbors so we spent lots of time back and forth visiting every day.

On August 29th Mark and I were traveling to a nearby town with Mark’s family and as we crossed the Livingston square we saw my Dad walking across the street. We casually paused a minute and I asked where was he going. He answered, “Over to the store to get me a sandwich and a Cokey Cola” and then he laughed. By 6 o’clock that night my Dad was dead.

My Mom had recently gotten a job at the local hospital and she was at work there that night answering the switchboard. I was still out and about and Mark and I had taken Mark’s little sister to the Dairy Queen as this was Thursday and we were to leave Sunday morning and head back to Georgia. My dad had come home from work and sat down in his recliner and appeared to be asleep. My sister was 15 but was in the kitchen cooking supper for the family. My brother was at football practice but was soon to arrive home.

As my brother arrived and my sister got all the food ready she said loudly that supper was ready and began putting the food on the table. My brother came but my Dad didn’t. He had died there in his chair. When they both realized that something was wrong they called Mom at work. She had my brother pull Dad onto the floor and begin mouth to mouth and CPR on him following her instructions. My Mom somehow got in touch with Mark’s Dad and asked if he could go over to our house and help my brother and sister. An ambulance was also on it’s way. My dad had been dead for a good while and it was just too late.

Meanwhile I was waiting in the car at the Dairy Queen and Mark and his little sister were up at the window ordering our food.

All of a sudden someone was banging on my side of the car on the window glass and it was Mark’s dad and tears were streaming down his face. I don’t really remember what was said to me but somehow I knew the ambulance I had heard just a few seconds before was bringing in my Dad and I needed to go to the hospital. The rest of the night is kind of blurred but I do remember Mark handing me a full cup of milk as he and his sister reached the car about the same time that Mark’s dad was speaking to me and I dropped that whole cup of milk and it went all over our car. I was screaming by then.

Dad died on Thursday August 29th and the Sunday that we were supposed to go back to Georgia was my Dad’s funeral. I remember we had 2 nights of visitation at the funeral home before the funeral on Sunday. My dad was Circuit Court Clerk of Overton County at the time and was very well known and liked. People came from far and wide to his viewing.

The first night of Dad’s viewing was Friday night and there was a football game that night, a very important district game. My brother had asked if he could leave for just a bit and play in his game and come back and Mom said, “No, absolutely not!” as she felt like that would be very disrespectful. Robert honored her wishes and didn’t play that game. His team won that night and later on I remember seeing all of these well-dressed clean cut football players enter the funeral home and with them they carried the game ball and presented it to my brother. It was a very touching moment!

From that point on my brother played the game of football in memory of my Dad and to this day holds the record at Livingston Academy for the most interceptions in one season. That record was made 45 years ago and has been tied a couple of times but no one has ever broken it. It was an awesome team and an awesome season!

My sister is flying in from Texas just to be here for this honor in my brother’s life. When dad died my brother was only 17 and my sister was 15. Can you only imagine what those 2 kids went through that night? My sister made an RN because of that night and how helpless she felt as to not knowing what to do.

The upcoming Friday night of September 6th is coming back full circle for our family and I am sure that my Dad is up there in heaven smiling from ear to ear at the achievements of my brother, not only for being a great football player but most of all for being a really good man!

With tears in my eyes now as I write I can only say, “GO HOGEYE”

For the last several Sundays at church a candle has been lit for Advent. This past Sunday was the candle of JOY. Everyone that is close to me knows that JOY is my word and especially at Christmas!

As I have told in past blog posts, JOY, was not always my word. My emotions went through many years like roller coaster rides….up and down and down and up again.

I have a close friend that is a pastor and he just lost his mother 4 months ago and this is his first Christmas without her. I write this tonight in memory and honor of her and of others who have lost love ones and this is their very first year to go through the holidays.

Holidays and Birthdays and Date of Death days are the very worst. The first year to go through all of these events is horrible!

I already had my crying spell this year just like all the years before and I never know exactly what will trigger it. Usually it will be a song from years past and the words will take me back to a certain time and a special Christmas. Alabama’s song entitled Christmas Memories will get me every time.

I have so many loving and fond memories of our son, Danny. The tree that was dying and we made into the tree house is the special tree that Danny climbed branch by branch years ago and put blue lights on every limb. Danny was my decorator. He loved decorating and putting up Christmas as much as I did and still do. No one else in the family got that trait and I miss it so much. I look at my tree house tree a lot of days and it makes me feel close to Danny and I like to sit on that tree house porch and just enjoy the peace and serenity that it brings to me.

I chose from the very beginning to let Danny’s death be a testimony of his life and I try to honor him each and every day of my life. He was such a kind hearted individual and would give the shirt off his back to anyone. He had a heart for the down trodden and the hurting and wanted to fix things for them.

God gave me JOY to handle my grief. In the second week after Danny’s death, Satan came at me strong and tried to hurt me to the point of laying down and quitting. I was weak and vulnerable and God sent a special lady to my house during that time with words that she felt led to say. It was a God send for me and brought me back to the JOY that was there all along but shadowed by the darkness of Satan’s lies.

JOY can get you through things that you thought you never could live through. I always tell my children that when you are really hurting to reach out and find someone in need and start helping them and by doing that you will forget your problems and you can count it all JOY!

Yes, all of it you can count as JOY. It is possible because if your JOY rests in the Lord then no one can rob you of that. JOY and Happiness are two different words with two different meanings. You can be sad in your circumstances but still have an everlasting JOY in the Lord.

 I like this little saying so much. It is hard to thank God for each and every thing that we go through but if we will make the effort then God will honor it 100 times over.

Tonight I was working on something that needed a hot glue gun and I went and found a small box of glue sticks and glue guns that my dear Danny left behind when he passed from this life. If you look closely you will see his handwriting on the box. I cherish that little box and I cherish the memory of having my son for 37 years. God loaned him to me for a short period of time and it went by fast but I am so thankful for the years that I had and the many, many memories.

Most of all I cherish the gift of JOY and I am a very blessed Grandma this Christmas and I acknowledge that most and foremost to my Lord and I thank Him for giving me His love and His JOY!

Merry Christmas and may you have a JOY filled New Year!

Yesterday afternoon Mark and I went to the movie matinee to see Indivisible. This movie has connections to some long time friends of ours as their son-in-law was the 1st assistant director for the film. The movie is a Christian movie but also a soldier movie. I planned the trip but really did not go into a lot of details with my husband because I so wanted him to go with me and he usually would not pick the same type of movie as I would so I was afraid if I told him a head of time that he would refuse to go.

I could tell at the beginning of the movie that he was not into it and I worried that he would fall asleep or something while sitting there and just tune everything out but soon the story line got his attention and he was getting into watching it.

The movie basically tells about soldier life, war, and PTSD through the eyes of the Chaplain and his family.

As we sat there watching, my eyes filled with tears many times. I have lived the life of the wife in that movie and my mind was racing with so many thoughts!

My soldier husband left for Iraq as one of the oldest members of our Tennessee National Guard K troop. He was not in shape when he was activated and fell out many times during the gruesome training that he had in Hattiesburg Mississippi. I remember the first time that I made the trip down to Hattiesburg that I could not sleep at all that first night over seeing the living conditions that our soldiers had to endure and the horrible heat that they suffered from. It was very hard to witness!

My husband ended up passing all of his physical training and was ready to be deployed to Iraq. Right before he left, I remember thinking what a jokester he had always been and how his laugh was so contagious and my biggest concern was that he would lose that in going to Iraq and come back a totally different person.

As I watched the movie yesterday I realized that my husband did come back a totally different person and the man that I love so much has a part of him still left in that far away land.

Mark and I collect bluebirds as we travel around and take trips and we have for years and that is another story for another day as to why but I believe that God fully intended for me to marry the man that I married and I know that God was in it for I had prayed diligently about it.

The wife in the Indivisible movie had a happy ending to her story but for me so far my story has not ended well. I remember when Mark first returned home how hard we suffered over the PTSD that he has. He was so different and still is to this day. He did a lot of strange things at the beginning and had nightmares every night for 2 solid years. He would moan and groan in his sleep and run in the bed and I would ask what he was dreaming but for the longest time he would never tell me but finally he did. We went the route of the VA doctors and the medications and the anger. I had a fear of my husband during that time because I could see so much anger in his eyes and I was afraid of him. The medications really did not help and made the hard times even harder. I remember going to talk to a fellow soldier’s wife one time and left her office in tears. She told of her husband and how he just sits in his recliner all day, medicated up, staring at TV, and never going out anywhere with her anymore. I decided then and there that I did not want that for my husband. He stopped all the medications and just talks about it all now for his therapy.

He talks and he talks and he wears the soldier caps and everywhere we go he searches out other men with those same caps on and makes a bee line to them. He will talk on and on with them and I basically have to drag him away many times. I want him to talk to me like that but he never does and it makes me resent the bond the soldiers have sometimes. He keeps up to date with all the men in his troop and knows when each one is going through an illness or if one of them dies. He receives phone calls from fellow soldiers and he will sometimes get up and go outside to talk. It is so hard for me on this side of it all to understand.

The movie that we watched yesterday made me realize a lot of what I go through many other women have walked the path before me. My husband has a Facebook page but instead of wife pictures and family pictures his is filled with him in the desert or fellow soldier pictures. It is so hard to understand all of this.

I am not writing for pity sake for me but for the ones that follow me to know that what our soldiers and their families go through is very real. War changes them forever! The movie was entitled Indivisible but when we say the Pledge of Allegiance you will remember the words right before and after and they are: One Nation, Under God, Indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for All!

Liberty and Justice for All! With Veteran’s Day fast approaching did you every stop to think how your Liberty and Justice was paid for by so many men and women of the armed forces and many lives were given? I have just shared enough in this article to give you a small glimpse into what we on this side of it sacrifice for you.

I hope and pray that my husband will someday return to the person that he once was. I long to hear the laughter in his voice and to see the smile on his face return. I pray for him to be able to move past all the hurt that he has endured and to put it all behind him but if that never happens I made up my mind a long time ago to just deal with it come what may and move along the best I know how.

In Isaiah the 26 chapter and the third verse it says these words:

Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee. 

When I took my marriage vows, I said the words, For Better or for Worse and in this time of our lives I am living in the” for worse years.” I pray all the time for the better years to return but if they do not then I know that I can survive. As we drove away from the theater yesterday I said to my husband that the wife in the movie had a happy ending to her story but my story did not. He replied with silence.

I have a grandson right now that has a Dad that is serving in the Ukraine and the 9 year old is suffering from acid reflux. Just a coincidence you say, I really don’t think so.

Please pray for our military, their wives, and their families. 

We have 3 cats. Last fall my husband built our cats a house of their own and as the temperatures dropped he also rigged up 2 heat lamps near the house and placed a thick old rug outside their door with 1 of those heat lamps up above that so that they could bask in the warmth when they were outside eating their food and it also kept their drinking water from freezing.

Our neighbors have a little beagle dog. For years now there has been an ongoing battle between the beagle and our cats. The old tom cat which is the daddy of our other 2 cats will take the lead in fighting the beagle. The beagle makes 2 daily rounds of our property to see if he by chance can get a nibble of our cat’s food.  Sometimes the dog wins and most times the tom cat wins. We think it is quite comical and just sit back and watch.

Last winter after my husband built such a fine mansion for our cats, there was about a 1 week span of time that the temperatures dropped way down to the frigid zone. My husband went out one early morning to feed the cats and they were no where in sight. It was freezing cold! He peeked in their house to see if they were in there and to his surprise, there lay the beagle all snuggled up with the 3 cats. We still talk about that in amazement.

Today at church the thoughts that inspire this writing just hit me.

The cats and the dog were arch enemies until the going got really rough and then they banded together to survive and make things work.

Jeremiah 6: 16-19 in the King James reads as follows:

Thus saith the Lord, Stand ye in the old ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls. But they said, We will not walk therein.

Also, I set watchmen over you, saying, Hearken to the sound of the trumpet. But they said, We will not hearken.

Therefore hear, ye nations, and know, O congregation, what is among them.

Hear, O earth: behold, I will bring evil upon this people, even the fruit of their thoughts, because they have not hearkened unto my words, nor to my law, but rejected it.

What does this mean? I believe the key to this lesson is in verse 16. We are told by God to stand in the old ways and see. If we cannot see the right paths then we are to ask where the good old way is. There are many ways to be traveled but only one good way that has been around since ancient times and this is the way to God.

I got to thinking about all of this today in church in regards to the state of our world today. I will give you an example of what I have been thinking.

I know of 2 dear soldier friends that have been friends for years. One of the soldiers had many children and was very poor and the other soldier was in a position of means and ability to help the soldier with the many children. Many times in years past, the soldier of means would repair or fix things for the poor man and help ease his little family along. Today, many years later, these 2 men do not even speak now because of the different political views and the prejudges that they both hold. They have forgotten the joy and love that they once held for one another and both have become obsessed in their thinking that their way is the right way and the right path. Only God’s way is the right path to follow.

I hear so much riff raft spoken at my every turn these days and to be honest, I am just sick to my stomach about it. In my growing up years, I was taught that if you can’t say something nice, then just don’t say anything.

I read comments on Facebook that just blow me away! Somebody will just write their own personal opinion about something and others will just jump right in and say the ugliest, most ungodly things. I can understand why some people are choosing to delete their Facebook accounts or take days away from it. It is very depressing!

I feel that if we would pray for the issues and yield ourselves to finding the right ancient paths that our nation would heal and our souls would once again sing. We spend so much time in the negative and I try to write positive blogs that are uplifting but this time I just felt like I had to say these things.

America needs a cleansing, a healing, and a revival and it begins with each and every one of us that claim to be Christians. Our mouths need washing out and our minds needs a power washing. We need to get down on our knees and pray like we have never prayed before and I am speaking to me as well as to anyone else. Let’s quit scouring Facebook or the news looking for all the negative that is so easily found there and let us begin a crusade to see and find the good. Here is a picture that says it best:

Like the cats and the beagle, the going is now rough for us and it is time to put our battles to rest and find the warmth and the workable solutions to make the world a better place so we all can survive. Please stop this nonsense and get back to the old ways and find the right path and God will heal our land!