Twenty nine years ago, Craig and Becky were both working for Conoco.   They are both engineers.  Craig a Chemical, and Becky an Industrial.  Craig was assigned to Paris, so they were living there.  Her oldest son Steven was eighteen months and she was almost eight months pregnant.  I was teaching at the college in Miami, Okla. and fall break was coming up.  I got a call from Becky.

"Mom, go get your passport and come to Paris.  I've got your ticket."  I answered, "I don't fly.  I am afraid to fly.  Your dad flies, I don't.  I don't want to come to Paris."  Then she said the operative words for a mother:  "I need you."  Followed by, "I want to come back to the states to have this baby, and if I wait until Craig is finished here the airline won't let me board because I will be too close to term.  I can't fly back by myself.  I need you to hold Steven on the flight back.  I don't have a lap anymore."

So I got my passport, and flew to Paris, France.  Gritting my teeth.  I survived.  It was wonderful.  I stayed with them a week sleeping on the sofa in a two room walk up at night and "doing" Paris with Becky each day.  We left Craig there at the end of the week and flew back to the USA.

And during the years afterward, when her boys were six or seven or so, every time Becky went overseas to work, she would get me a ticket and we would take one of the boys so that they could experience Europe and have someone to entertain them while she worked.  I especially remember one trip.  We were in Grimsby, England.  Up on the North Shore.  She had taken a team with her,  and every day they would go to some oil rig--or something or other--and drop Steven and me off at a little train depot.  The two of us would head West on the train to York, change trains and go North or South, and hop a train back and meet the team for late supper, (Which was fantastic--I can still remember every meal.  I asked the cook if  he would go back to Oklahoma with us.)

More than once, Steven and I would spend the day in York at the York Cathedral.  It is a marvelous place.  During the war, they removed the stained glass windows (there were many, many, many windows) and buried them during the bombing of England so that if the Cathedral was hit, they could maybe restore it--and have the stained glass.  I am so glad that I had those experiences discovering Europe with her boys.  Becky gave me that opportunity, which was a blessing.

I wrote the following back in 2016, but since Becky Bacon is here staying with me, I think it's worth repeating.  Becky and Joe have a real life romance story.  She was married before, and her ex told her that since she was such a romantic,  she should have married a guy he heard about in Viet Nam.  He said that this man flew C-47's and every time he was waiting on the runway for clearance to take off, he played "The Yellow Rose of Texas," and raised the Texas flag through the hatch.  "Never met the guy, but he was a romantic like you," Becky's husband said.  Their marriage didn't last.  After it dissolved, she prayed that God would send her someone like the Texan who played "The Yellow Rose of Texas.

Years later, while living in St. Louis, Becky was  visiting a single's class at her church and a new man offered to get her a cup of coffee.  "I don't drink coffee," she told him.  "I drink tea."  He brought her tea.  With milk and sugar--exactly right--and called her the next day.  And the next.  And the next.

"I didn't have time for that," Becky said.  "I was a nurse going to school trying to finish another degree, and trying to raise a son.  But this guy was persistent, so I finally said yes, and on our third date, I asked him to tell me more about himself.  His name was Joe."

"He told me that he was from Texas.  He had been adopted by the Agricultural Ambassador to India, where he was raised and went to school with the Maharaja.  Joe was Cherokee.  So he became an Indian-Indian.  Joe proceeded to tell me about his entire life.  He was a B-52 pilot who had volunteered to go to Viet Nam, flying C-47's and that while he was there, when he had a mission, that he flew the Texas flag and played the Yellow Rose of Texas every time he sat on the runway.

"I thought my heart was going to burst.  I could hardly believe what he was telling me.  This was definitely a God thing.  But I didn't tell him my story until after we were married--that I had heard about him, and about praying for God to send him to me for the last three years."

When God decides to put two people together, He will find a way.  They've been married over thirty years.  A match made in heaven.  They put the Texas flag on their front porch.

Becky Bacon got bad news at the eye doctor last Wednesday, she has to have surgery tomorrow.  So she stayed the weekend and we have had a blast  doing nothing.  It has been a lot of fun.  We both worked the estate sale my sister and daughter had.  Becky went back and worked a second day because she had so much fun the first day.  Not me.  One morning of that was enough.

I was thinking about what I said about the Holy Spirit last week and came up with another example about people being saved who didn't have the Spirit...and would be is all 11 of the remaining disciples and all of those followers of Christ.  They believed in Jesus.  They believed he died for their sins.  They believed he was risen from the dead, but they didn't have the Holy Spirit until Pentecost.

Just saying.

Now, however, when we accept Christ, we receive the Holy Spirit.  The Spirit has come.  The Spirit who is God, in the role of God in our lives.  He leads us with a still small voice.  He comforts us when we are broken.  He does not make us jump up and down and holler.  Nor is it necessary for Paul to lay hands on us to receive the Spirit--which you might deduct from what Paul and the Corinthians had to say in this passage:

"And he (Paul) said to them, Unto what then were you baptized and they said, Unto John's baptism." (which would be how John the Baptist was baptizing--for repentance.)  Paul explained that the Messiah had come, his name was Jesus, the people there believed, were baptized and after that, "...Paul laid his hands on them and the Holy Ghost came on them..."  In this case the Holy Spirit did not come when they were saved nor when they were baptized, but when Paul laid his hands on them.

You have to be careful when you read a passage.  You can't build a separate denomination on one set of verses.  At Pentecost, flames of fire came upon them.  Paul is dead--so he can't lay hands on us, and I haven't heard of anyone lately getting flames of fire.  But I do know people who exhibit the nature of God in difficult circumstances.  That is the work of the Holy Spirit.  God's Spirit is a gift for the saved in Christ.  He changes us.  Bit by bit.

I guess what I am saying is that God is one, with three roles.

We worship God the Father.

We praise God the Son for what He did for us.

We listen to God the Holy Spirit.

We now have what God intended.  His voice inside us leading us into righteousness.  His very Spirit comforting us in times of trouble.  Jesus came to intercede for us.  To make us fit to hold God in our cleansed bodies.  Once cleansed, God can inhabit our very bodies.

We no longer have a list of things to do and don't do.  Not that there is anything wrong with the list.  We just don't need it anymore.  God the Holy Spirit guides us.

More than that, we now want to do what is right.  We have a new and different nature.

Ken used to say, "I would much rather my children obey me because they love me than because they fear me."  I think that is how God feels as well.

We are now made in his image.  As He intended in the first place.

Loved by the God of the Universe.

At teacher's meeting, we got into a heated discussion about the Holy Spirit.  I made a statement that everyone jumped on and disagreed with me.  I said, "You don't get the Holy Spirit to become a child of God."  Which I was going to explain--but everyone was giving me such a hard time, I never got to finish my thought.  So I will finish it here.  You may not agree.

All of the people in the Old Testament were saved exactly like we are.  "For by grace are you saved, through faith..."  That passage is in Ephesians 2:8.  The Old Testament believers never got the Holy Spirit within, because the Holy Spirit didn't come until Christ rose from the dead.  But they were just as saved as we are.  They were saved by faith.  The 11th chapter of Hebrews is a list of all the Old Testament characters that were saved by faith--not by getting the Holy Spirit.   We are saved by faith.  But what is "faith?"  Saving faith is the belief that God is going to do what he said he was going to do.  And that was to send a sacrifice for our sin.  A substitute.  Before Christ came,  they believed that God would forgive their sin with a sacrifice to come.  We now know that sacrifice is Jesus.

We first believe that there is a God.  We then must acknowledge our sin and repent. (That's not just being sorry.)  Then we accept that there is nothing we can do to earn forgiveness, that Jesus took all our sin on himself.  We believe that Jesus died in our place, then rose again to intercede for us at the throne of God.  That's it.  We give him our life and ask him--God the son--to intercede for us.

The Holy Spirit's role in this is to draw us, to convict us to repent.  Yes, the Holy Spirit is God, and God does the saving, but the Holy Spirit is not what "makes" you a Christian.  The Holy Spirit is a gift from God, putting His Spirit back into man to direct us from the inside.

He--God, the Holy Spirit--is a down payment of things to come.  The earnest of our salvation.  In the Old Testament, God says he will take away our hearts of stone and put his Spirit in us.  Back then, the people did not have that.  Jesus came to put His Spirit back into man.  The way God intended it from the beginning.  God made man and breathed his Spirit--His breath--into him.  2 Corinthians 1:22, "He has identified us as his own by placing the Holy Spirit in our hearts as the first installment that guarantees everything He has promised us."  The role of the Spirit of God is not salvation.  The blood of Christ does that.  The Spirit is a gift because we have trusted Christ.  They didn't get that in the Old Testament because Jesus had not yet come.  But they were saved.  God the Father sent the sacrifice.  God the Son's blood was the sacrifice.  God the Holy Spirit does the reassuring and gives us power.

Becky Bacon (BB) has an appointment in Oklahoma City today.  Which means (Yea) that she will stay all night with me tonight and tomorrow we can go somewhere and have fun.  I need to pray that her eyes will get better, but that would mean that she wouldn't come to OKC to see her specialist and stay with me.  Conflict of my moral character!!!  But of course, I have to hope she will get better.

I was going to Pryor over Christmas (got pneumonia and couldn't) so I called her and asked her if she had a bed for me.  She was in Colorado, and told me how to get into the house in Pryor.  She said to take the whole house.  Someone here asked why I didn't stay with Scott and Stacy, or my brother Bill and Janet.  Scott and Stacy are in a tiny rent house with four kids and their kids coming, and Bill and Janet were in Kansas at the time.  And Carolyn had her granddaughter's family with her.

BB is my "go to" when I need something.  She is an RN supremo.  Knows everything about medicine that there is to know.  She should be an honorary doctor.

I tell people in Pryor, and friends everywhere, to stay with me when they come to OKC.  Some of them don't believe me.  I don't get it.  When I say "Come," that's what I mean.  I'll even fix breakfast. I love to have people stay with me.  Even if they are busy elsewhere and I don't get to see much of them.  I just like to have visitors.  You can have the two bedrooms and bath over on the North side of the house--I never go back there.

I love my friends.  The best part is:  They love me.  It takes time to get there, but mercy!! It's wonderful.  You don't make many friends like that in your life.

You may remember me telling you that BB is married to Joe, the Indian Indian.  He's Cherokee and was raised in India as the  US Agriculture Ambassador's son.  Go back and read my blog about him.

The tree that has bugged the dickens out of me in the back yard of the house behind me, well, it has come down.  It was huge, and dead--by far one of the tallest trees in Edmond--leaning towards my house.  Every time we had a wind storm--which is at least once a week in Oklahoma--I was sure it would fall.  It took three men five or six days working full time to get it down.

I spent many a day praying that it wouldn't fall on my house, especially on the days that the wind got above fifty miles an hour.  Which was often.  The man who owned the house died, and his estate was a mess.  Nobody had the authority to take the tree down for months and months.

One less thing to worry about.  I'm thankful it is gone.  When you plant a tree in a developed community, you don't think about the end of that tree's life--when it dies.  This tree probably cost less than $25.00 to plant it in the ground.  But the bill for taking it down was huge--a couple of thousand.  I had gotten an estimate on taking it down, and was almost to the point I was ready to pay someone to take it down myself.  It would have been cheaper than the deductible (on my insurance) to repair the damage it would have caused to my house.  But I couldn't legally do it.  Another man's property--well, another dead man's property.

Not even considering it could have killed someone.

It was one of those "Your hands are tied," moments.

I'm breathing better.  Sometimes you have to take your troubles to the Lord, and leave them there.

This was one of those times.  And most days I did.  Leave them there.  I decided that the worst thing that could happen was that it would crush the NW corner of my house and destroy my bedroom and bath, or kill me in the night while I was asleep.  Either way, everything would end up all right.  I would hire someone to fix the house, or I would go to heaven.  One or the other.

After that, I slept well.

I saw on the news that Britain has a new minister.  A loneliness minister.  They line up volunteers to call and visit on the phone, or write letters, with people who have no family close by--or who are shut ins.  Just to talk. I understand the value of contact with people.  When you are in the last quarter of your life, all of your children are gone with families and children of their own.  And sometimes your health isn't good so you don't get out much.  Thus, time sometimes drags.

And if you don't have hobbies or outside interests where you come in contact with other people, it does get lonely.  I try to stay involved and busy, but many older folk can't for one reason or another.  And they end up isolated in their homes.

When I was growing up, people sat on their front porches, or walked around the neighborhood stopping to visit.  Everyone knew all of their neighbors.  There weren't any TVs, iPads, laptops, cell phones, or other distractions--so people interacted with other people.

Now, however, people stay glued to their phones.  Texting.  Last week, when I was going through boxes looking for a story I had written, I came across all the letters Ken had written me.  The next generation won't have letters.  That makes me sad.

Letters are a wonderful thing.  They capture a moment in time when a person just wanted to stay in touch and describe their circumstances.  The weather, who married who, and on and on.

Ken and I had many,  times to communicate by letter.  He was gone twice in twelve years for over 13 months each time.  And numerous times for two or three months.  Deployed.  We wrote.  Very seldom missing a day.  I kept his letters.  He didn't keep very many of mine--I wish he would have because I wrote stories about our children.  But I can understand why he didn't.  Hard to keep things like that when you live in a tent.

I'm glad someone kept Paul, Peter, James, etc. letters.  We can read them and know how difficult it was to be a Christian.  And how they encouraged each other.  I love letters.  There is nothing quite like going to the mail box and finding a letter addressed by hand. (Thank you Amy Smith.)

My daughter Becky and sister Lisa formed a company a year or so ago:  Swan Estate Sales.  (Swan was Lisa's maiden name.  Mine, too.)   They have had a bunch of them, but the one coming up is going to be a doozie.  I went over to the place where they are setting it up and have never seen the likes of this one.  The oil paintings alone are fabulous.  This sale is the real deal.  It will have to be advertised nationally.  Some of the items have only been seen in places like the British, and French museums.

I can't tell you how much work it is to set one of these sales up and organize it.  I spent an hour going through paper the other day, just to find provenance for the paintings.  And still didn't get through all of the paper.  I sometimes work a room for them on the day of the sale.  My price is right for my time.  Free.  I just like to meet the people who come through.  And I like to help out.  It's nice to be needed.

Pam called me to work at the store today--Edmond's Antiques.  I took Squig.  He greeted everyone who came in.  He thought they had come just to see him.  Of course I keep him on a leash, but everyone comes over to where he is to pet him.  He loves it.  He thinks he's special.  And he is.

I think God did some of his best work when he made dogs.

I'm sure you have seen those puzzles on Facebook that have three steps--and you have to figure out the answer using hamburger buns, ice cream cones, boxes, bluebirds, etc.  They always have an obvious visual catch.  They are observation oriented.

And then there are the math problems, which have proved to me (by at all the different answers people get) that nobody learned anything in their math classes.  The most fundamental rule of mathematical procedure, is to always multiply before you add.  The problems will look somewhat like the following:  4+2x3+1 = ?  The most common wrong answer being 19.  (Answer is 11)

It makes me wonder how anybody passed their classes in math.  If you don't know what to do first, you will never get where you are going.  And the same thing is true in life.

If you don't learn your ABC's in kindergarten or first grade, you won't be able to read when you learn how to put the letters together.    But even if you can read, unless you know what the words mean, you won't understand.  Learn must learn vocabulary.  And vocabulary is a lifelong accumulation.

They say that the Eskimos have over seventy different words for frozen water.  They depend on those descriptions because they are a constant force of nature in their lives.  But here in the lower US, we only need a few: ice, snow, sleet, slush, and hail are about all words we need.

Reading the Bible takes vocabulary--some that is not in use today--if you are using the King James translation.  Thee, thou, thine, etc. from the old King's English.  I like to read it, but I certainly don't recommend it for a new Christian.  And I would never start someone off in the Old Testament.

I would say the first step, if you are not in the habit of reading the Bible, would be to get an overview of Jesus' life.  Four books tell about that: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.  Pick one.  Then "Acts" tells what happens next.  For the second step, I would read the book of Acts.  The rest of the New Testament consists of letters that were written to people and churches.  They are short.  I would pick Romans.  If you read those three small books (if you can call eight or nine pages a book) you have the basics of the Christian religion.  Who, what, when, where, why and how.  It will change your life.

I am going to have another great-grandchild.  And this one will be the first boy.  "Gunner."  Probably going to be a Marine with a name like that.  I have three great granddaughters, so this will add  some variety.

There are so many people in my family that I have a hard time remembering who told me what.  And we are all close.  Everybody pretty much keeps up with everybody else.  I love them all.  And I like some of them as well!!

We have falling off the cliff left-wingers, and falling off the other side of the cliff right-wingers as well.  You can't talk politics at our family gatherings.   I just wonder how in the world Ken and I produced such a diverse group.  I've learned to say, "Well, that's an interesting thought."  No commitment one way or another.  Keeps me out of trouble.

One of them asked me who I was going to vote for in the last election.  I jokingly said,  "I'm taking a quarter into the booth when I vote, and I'm going to flip it.  Heads, it's Hillary.  Tails, it's Trump.  And whichever one I end up voting for, I'm going to apologize to God when I walk out."  That made both sides upset with me--and I was just trying to be clever.

Everyone on both sides seems unable to talk to each other about anything.  Ken used to say, "If you have a Republican president, vote Democrat.  If you have a Democratic president, vote Republican.   That way they won't get anything done.  Because every time they do get something done, it seems to make things worse."  Of course he was saying that "tongue in cheek."  But there is some truth in it.

I just want some peace.  I would like to turn on the news and hear something relevant instead of meanness and arguments.  Was it Shakespeare who said, "...a poor player.  That struts and frets his hour upon the stage.  And then is heard no more: it is a tale...full or sound an fury, signifying nothing.

I think I'm getting old.

Transcribing what I wrote thirty years ago onto my Mac is difficult.  A lot of typing.  I threw my IBM out years ago, but even though I kept the hard drive, there is no way to transfer what I wrote in WORD to PAGES on an Apple.  I'm sure someone could do it,  but it is beyond my capabilities.

So yesterday, I hooked up and began typing.  I said I was going to do it, and I started doing it.  Now the problem is perseverance.  Which I find myself praying for: "God, please keep me motivated.  Don't let me become discouraged.  Keep me moving in the right direction."  Those are the kind of things I pray for because I know myself so well.

I am probably ADHD.  I work in spurts, change tasks and do something else for awhile.  I never finish what I start all at once.  I do a little bit of this and a little bit of that--going in circles.  I get bored very quickly.  However; I do finish what I start, eventually.  I set deadlines for myself.  I will have seven or eight projects going all at once, and finish one of them on a regular basis.  I'm always in the process of finishing something.  And starting something else.

Cleaning that box of papers out yesterday was a new project I started.  I'll sort out things from the box for a while, type for twenty minutes, read a chapter in a book I am half through, start (or finish) a sudoku puzzle, watch the news--circling back to the box and  typing.  At the end of the day I will have accomplished a lot of things, and finished one or two.

I've said before that I have perfected the art of procrastination to procrastin-action.  It works for me.  I don't recommend it.

I am excited about working on this book that I am writing.  There it was.  In a box.  Waiting on me to finish it.

"Whatsoever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might."  Colossians 3:23  Luckily for me, the scripture doesn't say, "...don't get distracted."

Now when people ask me what I do, I say, "I am a writer."  I didn't used to be a writer.  I considered myself a seamstress.  Then I went to college, got a master's degree and became a college math professor for twenty years.  In between--and continuing up until today--I was a pianist, a marimba entertainer, and a Bible teacher.  And for fifty-seven years, I was Ken's wife and the mother of our five children.  Wife and mother are  the best things I ever was.

But a frenzy of organizing overtook me last week, and I went through some papers in a box that had been moved--as I moved a zillion times.  And found notes from classes I had taken back in the 70's.  One set of notes was from a creative writing class.  There were poems, haiku, short stories, graded papers, among essays on different subjects.

I was awarded a full scholarship to Oklahoma Military Academy in the summer of '66--or maybe it was 67.  I don't remember.  They paid for everything, so I took whatever was offered from nine till two.  That let me get my kids to school and be there when they got home.  I didn't care what I took; I had never been to college before and found it fascinating.  Eventually, however, there weren't any classes left to take at those times.  I had way more hours than I needed to graduate.

Understand, this was before computers, and I could avoid graduating by changing majors.  I had no desire to graduate, I just liked going to different disciplines and learning.  And as long as the college was willing to indulge me, that's what I did.  But eventually, I had to transfer--I got a scholarship at a four year university, and kept taking classes, and switching majors to avoid graduating.  And somewhere in there, I took a class in creative writing.  And loved it.  And then, I forgot about it.

But now, I am so interested in writing.  It was really fun to go through all the things I had written for that class.  I am sorting through it all and those papers cover my dining room table at the moment.  Except for one thing which is sitting on an end table by my chair.  It is a story about my grandmother.  Probably 20-30 pages.  Never finished.

I am going to finish it now.  Starting today.  Because I am a writer.  (I like the way that sounds.)

 

The weather in Oklahoma is nuts.  It has been going from 65-70 degrees on one day to below freezing on the next--on a regular basis since early December.  One day I need gloves and a wind-breaker, the next I don't even need a sweater.  I'm not complaining.  The warm days are wonderful.

But of course, when it gets warm outside I get itchy to plant something.  Two more months and I'll start digging in the ground.  I made a big, big mistake in October when I had my gardener pull up the dead tomatoes and okra stalks and put them in the trash.  I forgot to tell him to save the okra pods.  I always leave five or six big pods to use as seed for the next year.

The seed comes from my dad's garden.  I've kept it going by collecting it at the end of the season for years.  It just adds something special when I pick okra from my dads "okra heritage."  I think that maybe I have some seed left over from last year.  I'll pull out my seed box and find out come March.  If I don't have any, maybe Scott does.  He is the only other gardner in the family.

I love the scripture from Psalms1:1-3 that says, "Blessed is the person...whose delight is in the law of the Lord...he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water that brings forth his fruit in his season; his leaf shall not wither and whatsoever he does shall prosper."  He's planted.  Firm.

If you are planted in the right place, your roots will automatically have water--you will be fed--and you won't have to grunt and groan to produce fruit.  It will just happen as a result of being where God wants you.  And as the fruit ripens and falls to the ground, some of the seeds inside the fruit will fall on good ground.  Some of it will take root and produce new trees in like kind.

What is this fruit that the tree produces--which of course is the fruit of a Christian life.  Paul tells us that the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, and temperance.  Nine characteristics we should possess.  And exhibit to others.

You don't have to grunt and groan to produce Christian fruit.  They are the automatic result of drawing from the water of God's words.  We grow, we mature, the fruit in our lives ripens and we become useful in His kingdom to those around us.  It is a continual cycle.  Get planted.

There is a woman in one of the groups that I am involved with who doesn't like me.  You know those subtle indications people make that let you know.  When I participate, she picks her nails until I am through speaking.  She rotates her body away from where I am sitting.  She talks to those around her and turns her back to me to let me know that I am not included in her discussion.

I have no idea why she doesn't like me.  It would help if I did, but I wonder if she even knows.  It is strange.  This probably happens when you join a group and the leader calls on your opinion instead of the other person???  Perhaps it is a case of jealously??  But this woman doesn't have a reason to be jealous.

When I am called on to answer a question and do so, she immediately finds something wrong with what I have said.  And expresses it out loud.  Or she rolls her eyes.  Whatever.  I find it strange.

You can't make people like you.  They either do or they don't.  There is something about your personality that clicks with theirs, or something about your personality that irritates them.  Who can figure it out.

I try to be a good listener.  At least let it look like I am listening.  I try to compliment people when they express something meaningful.  Not too often, or it looks like I am a wimp that oozes false praise.  That kind of praise grows old.  I have to work at listening.  Being a good listener puts the other fellow first.  You count them as important.  And you don't want to look like you want them to finish so you can talk.  When you are talking, you aren't learning anything.  Listen more.

We all live in our own little world.  Letting someone new in will cost you--in your time.  And I guard my time.  I don't want to know this woman any better anyway, but find it interesting that she needs to make it obvious that she doesn't want to include me.  Some things I will never understand.

"Love your brother as yourself."  That is a hard thing to do when they don't love you back.  God sent his Son knowing that people would reject him.  Why would He do that?   I don't think I'm there yet.

I went to teacher's meeting last week.  It's where we study and talk about the next Sunday's lesson and try and get additional insight from each other.  I had missed five weeks due to pneumonia, and expected someone to say, "Glad to have you back????"  Nope.  Didn't happen.

I'm going to be more conscious of things like that.  Sometimes we Christians are the very worst at the little things.  We get focused on the big picture and fail to do those little things that make up good social Christian behavior.  Things that let people know that we care about them.

Last year, I made an effort to call every person who was absent on Sunday from my class.  I wasn't one hundred percent effective--when people didn't answer.  I'll try to do better this year.

I usually only make one New Year's resolution.  If I make two or three, I'm sure to let one slide.  Last year, I determined to lose ten pounds.  I'm not much overweight, so it shouldn't have been hard.  But it was.  I'm a grazer.  I leave healthy snacks out on the counter because if I have something close by, I am pacified.  Problem is, I graze all day long.  So, I narrowed down the choices.  I lost the ten pounds, but put four of them back on over Thanksgiving.  So I am still working on last year's resolution.  I won't stop.  I'll get there.

My one resolution for this year is to watch what I am doing.  Move more cautiously, watch my feet and try not to fall.  And go to urgent care the first day I am sick--instead of trying to overcome whatever is wrong with will power.  (Which is why the pneumonia and cellulitis got such a hold on me).  In other words, take better care of myself and be more careful.  My mind thinks I am still thirty.  My body doesn't.  I hate admitting that.  It's almost as if you have given up and said that you are old.  Which I guess I am.  It stinks.

If you made a bunch of resolutions, go check your list and eliminate some of them.  Try and concentrate on one--or two--things and you will actually make progress.  Last's year's resolution was to lose 10 pounds.  I did, but now have to take off the Thanksgiving's four I gained.  Piece of "kale." The nuts on the counter may have to go.  Fewer fried foods.  Small changes.  I won't give up bread.  That's too hard.  I guess what I'm saying is that we should be honest with ourselves.

Sorry I missed writing Friday and Monday, but when I got up--or tried to--on Friday, I was so ill I had to get someone to take me to the hospital.  I thought I had the flu because I was shaking and freezing. I failed to look at my right arm--which should be my "go-to" check, since my arm  is trying to kill me.  But for whatever reason, I didn't.

Luckily, when my daughter Pat got me to the emergency room, the doctor noticed it and immediately diagnosed Cellulitis--and hospitalized me.  At that point I couldn't lift myself up to stand.  This has hospitalized me eight other times.  You go from being perfectly normal to critical in a matter of a couple of hours.  You would think I would learn.

My fault.  I know this is a problem for me.  A result of breast cancer--which I survived 10 years ago.  Thank God.  But I lost my lymph nodes in my right shoulder, and when I get a scratch of any kind, my right arm becomes septic and it spreads all over my body through the blood.  It happens quickly.

The hospitalist remembers me, as do the nurses, which is nice because I don't have to go through any explanations.  They know how sick I am.  The good thing is that once they put me on an antibiotic drip, I recover rather quickly.  The bad thing is that I could soon be resistant to any antibiotics that are out there.  But that's in the hands of God.

Another good thing is that I get to share with all of the new staff that I am a writer, give them my card and some of them get hooked.  One of the nurses went home and read what I had written starting in November.  Another nurse took a picture of the card, sent it to his mom and his sister in New York.  God allows things to happen sometimes to get you where he wants you to be.

It reminds me of the story of Paul and Silas being beaten, thrown into jail, locked in chains just for telling others the story of Jesus.  But while they were in jail singing and praising God, an earthquake broke the chains and the jailer was so overcome that he accepted Christ--and so did everyone in his family.  Sometimes God has to arrange to get us into jail--for a reason.  Paul never would have met the jailer otherwise.  For me it was a hospital.  I just try to share my faith when I get a listener.  And giving someone my card is an easy way to open the jail door.

Scott broke every bone in his body at one time or another.  His collar bone, shoulder, knee, wrist, leg, arm--and knocked his front teeth out as well.  And that's just what I remember.  He was a walking disaster looking for a place to happen.  However, walking is not the right word.  Running, full speed ahead, was how he encountered life.  Do something, then think about the consequences later.   Like I said yesterday, fearless.  Or just plain stupid, I'm not sure.

Once ,when he had just had a cast removed, we warned him not to use his skate board on our driveway while we were gone for the day.  Sure enough, he found somewhere worse to use his skateboard.  I got a call from Dr. Collins--who was a friend, and who had put a cast on some part of his body that day--there were so many I can't remember what he broke that time:  "Janie, the next time you and Ken are leaving town, call me.  I'm going to put Scott in a body cast before you leave."

And that doesn't even count the concussions.  One concussion was from sliding into home trying to beat the throw.  He took it head first, straight into the catchers chest and was knocked out cold.  Ambulance came, (not his first ambulance) took him to the hospital and seven hours later when he woke up, his first words were, "Was I out."  Yes.  Out.  And out of it.  That kind of intensity earned him baseball honors, but never slowed him down.  All State Oklahoma--which is a miracle he lived to collect.   I can't tell you how difficult it was to stay calm around him.  I never knew what he was going to do next.  He didn't either.

And he never did the same thing twice.  I'd say, "Don't do that again."  But I couldn't think of all the things I needed to tell him not to do.  He was always a jump ahead of me.

Then, nine years later, we had Jon.  Calm, quite, observant, cautious, but unusually strong.  Once when he was being tormented by a boy at school, I told him, "Jon, there's a time you have to fight.  You have to stand up to bullies."  His teacher followed him to the playground the next day and saw him pick the kid up, pin him to a wall and say, "Leave me alone, or I'm going to have to hurt you."  No one ever bothered him again.  He made All State as well, at nose guard and fullback.

Nothing I learned raising one child never helped me raise another.  They are all so different.

Ken was absolutely fearless.  Maybe what they say about, "Like father like son," is true.  They had different personalities, but Scott, like his dad had that same fearless streak.  Or maybe they just marched to a different drummer.  Anyway, Scott, my oldest son, was also a Marine.  Is a Marine.  They say, "Once a Marine, always a Marine."  I think that is true.  They have a certain mentality.  If you were in another service, you say you were in the Army, or were in the Navy, or were in the Air Force.  Not so for the Marine Corps.  They say, "I'm a Marine."  And they say that for the rest of their lives.  They aren't "in" something.  They "are."

Scott told me a funny story once, which he can tell better than I can.  Seems that back in1989-90 we were involved in an armed conflict in Panama.  He was in a reconnaissance group, in charge of securing Howard Air Force Base, (which is on the pennisula by the Panama Canal, The Bridge of America), from the Cubans that were in country.  It was an armed confrontation.

Scott was the officer in charge of his group of men, directing his team, getting everyone in place, down and ready,when he noticed that the limbs in the nearby trees were cracking and leaves in the trees were falling.  Odd, because there wasn't any wind or any noise.  He was standing up, glancing around at his men, making sure everyone was down and in place, wondering what was up with the tree limbs breaking, when he got the stuffing knocked out of him.  His Gunny Sergeant tackled him and said, "Sir, they are shooting at you."

Scott said he told the Sergeant, "Don't they know I'm a good guy?"  To which the Gunny replied, "Sir, you're _____, ______ John Wayne."

I guess they thought he was brave, when really, as he tells it, "I didn't have a clue."  That's the thing about Marines, they take care of each other.  In the most direct way possible at the moment.

Marines are the landing forces.  People shoot at them.  Sometimes you get lucky and they miss.

A person only has so many stories.  Things that happened to them or to the people around them.  When I finish writing every day, I usually call Carolyn and read it to her so she can "evaluate."  She is an English major who taught drama for a million years.  She is brilliant on top of that.  Lately, she hasn't suggested anything.  I must be getting better.  Usually the only thing wrong is a misspelled word.  And Carolyn always catches that.

She told me a story that Ken told us that I had forgotten.  Ken adopted Carolyn after Wayne died.  If Ken took me to breakfast he would always say, "Call Carolyn.  Ask her to go with us."  Ken would say, "Janie, you have great taste in friends."  I do.

The story she remembered was when Ken told us about teaching cadets to land on the carrier.  First he would teach them to hit a designated spot on land--on a runway.  They had to hook wire on the runway a zillion times, and do it right, before he would take them to a pitching deck on water.  They had to watch the Landing Signal Officer (which was one of Ken's designations) who was standing on the runway and obey every signal--which at that time was done with flags.  (Now they do it with a light--which they call the meatball.)

He had a student in the primary stage that was not doing very well.  He kept coming in too low and finally hit the gates in the fence at the end of the runway.  Ken chewed him out royally--not because he almost killed himself, but because he tore up a plane, and hadn't done what Ken had told him to do.  "What were you thinking!!  You were too low coming out of the 180 again.  I gave you an "add power" signal.  You must have concrete between your ears.  Etc.  Etc."  And then Ken said, "You did the exact same thing yesterday and didn't hit the fence."  To which the student replied,  "Yes sir.  But yesterday the gates were open."

Some cadets didn't get their wings.  We should be thankful.

I think God planned it all.  Two people absolutely meant for each other.  We had an interesting life.  The years in the Marine Corps defined who I turned out to be.  I wouldn't take a million dollars for it.  And wouldn't do it again for all the money in the world.  Military life is hard.  You are at the mercy of the government's whims--which change with every president--who is the Commander in Chief.  You don't get to choose where your live.  You don't get to choose how long you live there.  You don't get to choose whether or not you will spend the next year together--especially when there is a war.

  Five children.  Ten grandchildren.  Three great grandchildren.  Ken told me when he married me, "The difference in our ages won't matter much now, but someday, you will probably have to figure everything out by yourself."  Which I have done.  I don't like it.

The thing about being a widow is that you are a dangling appendage to the lives of other people.  Included from time to time, but not quite a fit.  It's hard to figure out what you are supposed to be doing when you have spent fifty-seven years cooking three meals a day for someone.  Washing their clothes, folding them and putting them in their drawer.  Making decisions together.

It's like you don't have a point anymore.  I have to invent things to do to fill up my time.  And yet, I enjoy the fact that I can start a book and finish it in a day if I choose.  As a matter of fact, I can do whatever I want to do.  There just isn't anyone to do it with.  Which is the biggest adjustment.

My friend Carolyn told me, "People will say, I know how you feel.  They don't.  They can't know what is like to be left behind until they go through it."  She lost Wayne years and years ago.  I'm working on the fifth year and it feels like an eternity.  The thing you miss the very most is having someone to talk to.  That listens.  That replies.  Even if it is just, "Uh-huh."

When the Bible says, "The two shall become one," it's the truth.  I think it's the completion factor.  That other person fills you out.  Complements your personality.  I know that now I feel like only half an entity.  You can't live with someone fifty-seven years, lose them, and be whole again.

Till death do us part.  To love.  To care for.  To share your life with.  He was the love of my life.