Category Archives: Health

All I Want For Christmas

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For peace.

For things to slow down.

For batteries not to run out in toys.

For salad and Whataburger pancakes.

For a hungry child to fill his stomach full.

For lonely widows to have someone to talk to.

For all the unwanted children in the womb to live.

For my own children to be happy, successful and fulfilled.

For the person with cancer to have a cure, if only that be hope.

For laughter that brings tears to the eyes and snorts to the nose.

For a little boy, with his dog beside him, to shoot a bull’s eye with his BB gun.

For abused children not to be afraid of what’s under the bed, or who’s around it.

For adults to have more fun playing with the box instead of the gift inside.

For once actually getting in the fastest checkout line at Walmart.

For people to love on Monday like they say they do on Sunday.

For God to admit that His practical joke on the world was cats.

For workers at nursing homes to be extra nice and careful.

For just an hour of conversation again with my dad.

For the ability to write something significant.

For the soldier to sleep through the night.

For unemployed to feel worth.

For a kind word.

For peace.

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Again

Asleep.

3:38 AM.

Phone call.

Disbelief.

No!! Again, poem

Adrenalin.

Rambling words.

Panicked thoughts.

Drive.

Get it together.

Just facts, please.

Numb.

Please, God!

Hope.

Crushed hope.

Be strong.

More facts.

Anger.

Wait.

Honest words.

Prognosis.

Asleep? Nightmare??

Pinch hand. Bite lip.

Real. Surreal, but real.

Again story
Herod’s pool, Caesarea, Israel on Mediterranean Sea

Sorrow.

Why, God, why?!!

Sterile environment.

Head in hands.

Tear on floor.

Would switch places.

How?

Oh, God! Oh…God…

Resolve.

Forward.

Never the same.

New normal.

 

Catching Wind….in a Hurricane!

Hurricane Rita was going to blow in a few hours later and I was shutting down the hatch.  My four sons helped and I was about through when I walked in on them in the garage.  They looked guilty. Figures.

I was hurrying so I didn’t ask why they had a life jacket, rope and a new 8’ x 10’ vinyl tarp.  I should’ve done a mental stop, drop and roll, but there were just bigger fish to fry.  Besides, the next day I’d find out during the peak of the hurricane.

Ever since they were little, Blake, the oldest, has come up with ideas for his younger brothers to try.  Jared, the second born would usually pass on the idea, but instead encourage Todd, the third son, to try some scattered brain idea.

Sometimes Todd volunteered. Sometimes they talked him into it. Sometimes he was blackmailed into some wild, half-baked scheme, most of which (surprise, surprise) dealt with some sort of danger or peril.

Regardless how outlandish, or in this case, hazardous it might be, Todd usually tried their brain cramp scams.

Blake had an idea — a homemade parachute, powered by hurricane winds, to make Todd go airborne! Continue reading Catching Wind….in a Hurricane!

Dirt Road Drive

It’ll be dark in an hour. I jump in the pickup and start driving aimlessly in the country. After a sweltering hot day, it’s cool.  With both windows rolled down, it feels like heaven on earth air conditioning.

Smells of a freshly cut grass, honey suckle patches on fence rows and the scent of distant rain clouds permeate the air.  Red dust flies up behind the truck. It envelops the branches of the trees looking like a Picasso painting in the rearview mirror.

A little further down a pickup pulling a trailer is in a field being loaded with hay bales from last week’s cutting.  Just past that is a house where a boy rides his bike in a big circle over and over. He finally gathers his courage to take another shot to go airborne off the ramp he made from two 5-gallon buckets and a stiff piece of plywood.

It’s the South. It’s the country. It’s rural living.  It’s a culture where most folks like a slower pace of life, and not being crowded in at the gills by neighbors. Continue reading Dirt Road Drive

The Talons of Depression

I used to work in the mental health field as a Licensed Professional Counselor.  With that said, I’ve talked to a lot of people who suffer from depression and, in fact, have been depressed before myself.  To say it is difficult is a vast understatement.  Statistics show that 10.4% of all physician office visits have depression indicated on the medical record. With that in mind, here’s my best shot to describe depression –

Depression is having cold feet in the summer, and sweating under your coat in winter.

You used to raise your hands to praise to God, but now, getting them high enough to scratch your ear is hard.

You smile, shine your package, wrap your heart under brightly colored wrapping paper, but the contents are broken, crushed, spilling out.

You don’t know why. Not really.

You question.

Faith wavers.

Hope despairs. Continue reading The Talons of Depression

Mama of King Smoothie

I just wanted a smoothie, that’s all! A simple smoothie, in and out, no big deal.

Last week two college girls were working the Smoothie King counter. After staring mindlessly at the order board, I finally asked what the best tasting, healthiest smoothie was.

She immediately said her favorite smoothie was loaded with vitamins, fruit and called the Pre-Mama.

She was right! It was great!

Friday two college guys were working.  They were polar opposites. One was huge and tall; the other short and small, leprochaun size really.  I wanted to catch the hyper little guy and demand he take me to his hidden a pot of gold!

A lady was ordering in front of me.  The big guy taking her order had on a T-shirt at least a size too small, plus he had no, absolutely zero, enthusiasm.  Undertakers at funerals have more enthusiasm! Continue reading Mama of King Smoothie

Lunch Time Workout

It started with well meaning insults. I called him Fat Lard — he asked when my baby was due. It wouldn’t have mattered much except we were at work having cake and ice cream for a co-worker’s birthday.

I fell for it when he asked if I was losing weight. “I don’t think so”, I said suspiciously wiping ice cream from the corner of my mouth.  “I don’t think so either!!” he proudly rebuffed.  That made the guy sitting between us laugh so hard ice cream came out his nose.

Another co-worker, a skinny, hard belly, in shape little snot, talked about how we ought to come build fence with him over the weekend so we’d lose weight. He smiled as big as a con man at a senior citizen’s home when he proclaimed he wouldn’t even charge us a gym fee. We both ignored the loudmouth and chalked up his demeanor and hard stomach to a bad case of pin worms. Continue reading Lunch Time Workout

People Patchwork

I bought a bust on clearance at Hobby Lobby.  At 90% off I snatched the last one up like a large mouth bass after a Carolina rig.

It wasn’t until I got home that I realized my new purchase was damaged at the shoulder.  In fact, it had a really big hole in it.  At first I started to leave it like it was because looking straight at it, you couldn’t see anything wrong.  But turn it ever so slightly, and there was the gaping hole.

With a little bit of plastic cement and some poor, ragged patchwork, the hole was fixed, even though it’s obvious it’s been repaired.  After a couple of coats of spray paint, it was all the same color and not as blaringly obvious.

Now it’s on my desk in our home office. The pleasant, gently smiling woman looks like all is good, but on close examination, there’s “patchwork” hidden in plain sight. Continue reading People Patchwork

Verti Has To Go!

My nemesis, Verti, has got to go!  I’m tired of her magical spell. She’s not nice. In fact, she’s downright cruel. She keeps things stirred up and puts her own twisted spin on everything. She’s really mixed up!!

It started with a headache for a couple of days, which in and of itself is unusual for me.  But then it turned into light headedness.  I guess it’s obvious I may be light in the head …. but this isn’t a ditz light-headed … it’s a someone is playing spin the bottle in my brain light-headed!

I was at work walking in the plant and some sneaky rascal started moving the concrete floor! The world was spinning like a county fair Tilt-A-Whirl!

Continue reading Verti Has To Go!

Blue Bell Blues

While pushing a grocery buggy with a squeaky, lop-sided wheel through the store, a happy dance suddenly rises from the marrow of my bones. Blue Bell’s on sale!

Feeling tears of joy well up in my eyes, I stand hopelessly in front of the double glass doors completely mesmerized by the gold and brown rim half gallons of ice cream.  Salivating like Pavlov’s dog, I narrow in on Southern Blackberry Cobbler, but just before I reach for it, I see Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough out of my peripheral vision, and there’s Moo-Llennium Crunch above that!

Those made me second guess myself, and fight, and I mean fight, to walk away from it all like a good boy should.  But like a fly caught in a spider’s web, both feet stick to the floor as people pass me on both sides of the aisle.  Continue reading Blue Bell Blues