Pork Chop

When to a local place last night and had dinner with friends.  This place is the hot place in town right now and they are pig experts for sure.  I ordered the pork chop and was brought out a half of a pig rib section it was huge!  And it was wonderful.  It was so large that I couldn’t finish it.  I took it home and just finished eating it for lunch.  As I ate this wonderful chop it reminded me of my Mother.  She loved a pork chop better than anything I guess.  I can remember us having them for dinner and how she would be whistling while she cooked.  She was happy.  Then the first bite you could literately taste the love ooze out from the meat.  My Dad was so happy when we had them, my Mother was so happy it was quite a memory for me.   

Its Mother Day and what better way for me to remember my mother than by eating her favorite thing in the world.  I miss her so badly.  Anytime she comes up it is strange I am not sadden by her being with my Dad now I am feeling the void of her presentence in my life.  Her constant concern for me her ever present love and deep need to be a part of my life no matter what stage of it I was into at the time.  She had the most amazing ability to always know what I was feeling and thinking.  I can remember one time when I was a small child I fell from something hit my head and was taken to the doctor’s office.  Well this was long before CAT scans and other diagnostic procedures of today.  They had me hooked to some machine I was of course scared.  I was told to lie still so the machine would get a solid reading of my brainwaves or whatever they were measuring at the time.  I can remember my Mother reaching over to the bedside and me holding her hand.  The machine reacted strangely I guess because the doctor asked my Mother to release my hand for 15 seconds or so then hold it again.  She did and the doctor was amazed.  He said whenever she released my hand my brainwaves changed a bit then settled back to the reading prior.  Then when she held my hand it changed briefly and settled by again.  His explanation was when my mother was holding my hand it was like we were one brain activity!  He checked us several times then when in and got his colleague and he tested us.  No one could quite believe the results.  They sent them off to New York City or something like that as I remember nothing really ever came of it.  But I am telling you its hard growing up with a Mother that knows what you are thinking at 16 and 17 years old!  Just remember what you were thinking at that age…

Now skip forward to today.  My Memphis family is about to have another addition!  My claimed sister’s oldest son and his wife are about to become parents.  It will be here in December and no one is more excited than DeeDee and PaPa.  So next year we will have one more mother in the family and one more chosen one to spend time with, how exciting is that.  Can you imagine the joy this child is in for?  You see the in laws live in town as well so this child’s feet will not hit the ground until it walks across the stage to get its high school diploma!!  Spoiled I think so.  The Mothers family is remarkable as well.  Sound and loving, sisters and children everywhere this child is in for a wonderful introduction to family and unconditional love.  Maybe if it is lucky it will have the relationship and special gift I had with my mom.  If so I know Mother and son/daughter will be closer than they can ever imagine.  I can’t explain the feeling I get when I remember being with my Mom it is special beyond words.  I pray for this pair to have that bond. 

Well as I sit here with damp eyes dreaming about go grocery shopping with my mother I will leave you to ponder your Mother.  Special wasn’t she?  Beautiful wasn’t she?  Loving wasn’t she?  If she is still here go kiss her, Call her, Email her reach out to her you will be better for it and she will love it!!!

Can you have Pork chops for lunch and dinner?????

Peace,

The Blessed Man

Privilege

What a word. It means so many things in life. It can mean a benefit enjoyed only by a few and not all. It can mean a blessing of some sort you pick it. But today I got a firsthand experience that showed me I am privileged beyond my recognition.

So see I have a friend who can truly be said to have been privileged his entire life. He belongs to a family that has been deeply involved with the running of my city for generations. He is a Harvard graduate he owns one of the most successful businesses in our town and has been blessed in many ways. I have often caught an air about him and his family that I have felt a little like I was privileged to be allowed in the circle so to speak. It happened again today for me. I happened to be in his area and had something he wanted so I took it to his home. He was in the driveway overseeing some workers doing something or other. I drove up got my stuff and headed to his front door. He welcomed me as always with a firm hand shake how a sincere how are you, truly a gentleman of the highest regard. As I got to the front door I sat the things down and headed by outside he said no you can stand right here in the entry way!! I would have been comfortable in the outdoors with the carpenter’s. I have always felt his wife sees us a lower class of people. Anyway he gets what he needs and we speak a minute his wife never leaves the living room simply makes a small gesture from her safe distance. As I got back in my truck and headed to my house I was wondering what it was like to be a person of privilege. The more I thought about it the more I realized I was the person of privilege. You see he has lived his entire life trying to be a person to live up to his last name. What a curse! I, on the other hand, have lived my entire life trying to be the best person I knew how to be that’s it! So you see I have lived a privileged life. I unlike him have had scalawags as friends. I have been too drunk to fish! I have been in places his family and he would simply die if he had been there. And you know what I have had a blast. I have so many stories it would curl your hair. I am not saying he doesn’t have stories. I am just saying mine are truer to life as most of us know it. Wait a minute then if you go by the definition of privilege then who is the privileged.

Well I am going to say me! That’s my story and I am sticking to it. So it’s my hope as we all go through life that you have been privileged like me. I hope you know what it’s like to have so much fun it takes 3 days to recover. I hope you know what it’s like to watch your best friend get so wasted because some girl he is crazy for gives him the see ya later treatment. I hope you know what it’s like to simply enjoy your life. I am proud to have been privileged to live an unpretentious and inclusive life. I am not above or below anyone. What a privilege!!!

Peace,

The Blessed Man

Preaching

As I was sitting in church this morning I got the feeling I get sometimes and that is that the preacher is suddenly talking to me! I am blessed it happens often where I attend due to the quality of the preacher. He was talking about things people have done in the past to maybe discount you. I started thinking back and was hoping I couldn’t come up with times in my life where I had to discount someone for me to feel better. I remembered one time and I think it was because of the outcome I do not do it anymore.

It has to be over 30 years ago now. My best friend to this day and I were talking about with some people I really didn’t know. Well this girls name came up and I said something, not to nice about her, and the guy in the conversation I didn’t know said hey man that’s my sister! I couldn’t believe what I had just done. Everyone looked at me and I was no doubt the ass of the ball at that point. I have never forgotten the way I felt at that moment. Embarrassed, humiliated, and foolish were the feelings that even came back today as I sat in church wondering if anyone but me remembers the event. Then the preacher when on about other things he spun a new side to the sermon that really hit me harder than the first one. He started talking about things people might have said using examples like “You will never amount to anything”, “You’re an embarrassment to me”. “You are not worth anything”. As I sat there I almost started to weep as I have said those exact words to someone I truly love, my son. He can make me madder than anything, quicker than anything, and I am just not equipped to handle it at all. I have written in this space many times the frustrations I feel as I try to guide him through his life trying to help him avoid the pitfalls and mistakes his father has made. However, he acts as if I am the stupidest person alive. I know no other way to deal with it than to lash out at make it hurtful. I see friends and family deal with their children and it becomes clearer to me that the good lord is really testing me. I think I am a relative smart person and have a diverse view of the world patience in most cases and commented to doing well in anything I put my mind too.

So why can’t I get this Dad thing correct? What is the lesson here I ask myself. This is the one area of my life that I truly feel like I have failed. The larger factor is I am failing someone I love and have a responsibility to prepare them for a fruitful live. Why can’t I get this through my head? What is the block? As I sat there fighting with all of these ghosts this morning I am still battling them this afternoon. I have tried to commit to having patience with him. We sit down and in 3 seconds, or sooner, I have lost my temper. We have the most volatile relationship that is in my life, this is wrong. I started to think about the Dad’s I know and the relationships they have with their son’s. I can’t think of anyone who has the love hate relationship that my son and I have. What I really don’t understand is how to fix it.

I love my son. I have expectations of my son. And there is where I think the problems lay. He has totally different expectations, if any at all. I see an intelligent young man wasting his life away with job after job not even trying to get into a career. I see a young man when I was his age I was married and supporting a family. I see a young man with no responsibilities and living a care free live. Maybe that’s it, I am jealous? I sowed my wild oats but I grew out of it. What is taking him so long to get the picture that you need to get established and start working toward becoming a member of polite society?

I will never know I guess. I just need to stop take a breath and try harder to simply allow him to be him and quit taking responsibility for him. It would be so much easier if one of us lived in another area of the country. But for now that’s not happening.

So I guess that’s really about it. I hope if you have children you have a wonderful relationship with them. I hope they always ask for your counsel and then listen to you when you give it. I hope that every time you look at them you say, I am proud of you. You are important. You can be anything you want to be. I love you. And all of the other things the preacher said this morning were good thoughts.

For me this is a new day. I am proud of my son. He can be whatever he chooses and I will support it in spirit. He is important. Wow this is going to be hard.

Thanks for listening,

Peace,

The Blessed Man

Pain

I always write about my emotions and feeling I have never written about todays subject before. Pain. The kind that keeps you up at night, makes it hard to walk, is a constant drain of you emotionally and physically. The kind I have had for over 3 years every day. I write about it today because whenever I write about the other things I seem to feel better so I am going to try this outlet again for a little solace.

My granny, who taught me how to cook, clean a chicken, gather eggs, and garden a little was riddled with Arthritis. I can still see her withered hands going along never complaining about a thing and always thanking the good lord for a blessed life. I can always remember when it got cold she would suffer the most always rubbing her hands and trying to get them lose enough to make me something I loved to eat, or going to sit by the stove so she could quilt a little where the warmth of the stove would loosen her hands enough to enjoy her passion. She was as solid as a rock, buried 3 of her 5 children. A more humble woman I have never met. When she finally was out of her misery the funeral home couldn’t hold the people coming to pay their respects, a wonderful tribute, to an extraordinary woman.

I watched, as my Father was eaten alive by cancer. His, as you have read here before, was all consuming lymphoma. By the time they found it he had less than 6 months to live and all they did was try to make him comfortable. I can remember going to the treatments almost daily and him saying he didn’t know which was going to kill him first the treatments or the cancer. He would just ache from his cancer and really never complained. He was always mindful of my mother and he never wanted her to know how really bad he hurt. He said it made her fell back and he would never be a party to that. We were blessed the doctor gave him mega doses of pain killers so when it got really bad we could help him in the only way we knew how with a pill for some forced rest.

Me, my knees, I have had severe knee pain for well over three years in both of them. I had a small surgery back in February that was to fix one of them. It has really brought no relief. My right knee is bone on bone and the doctors have all told me I am too young for knee replacement. They say I am over weight and that is causing the unrelenting pain. I am over weight however, what really gets me the most is I see people who are a lot more over weight than me and they walk just fine. Why is this, my path in life? What is the good lord trying to teach me? What is to be learned from hurting every waking moment? I truly try to be like my Granny and father mentioned above I really try to never draw attention to my plight. My friends all know when I have bad days and all wonder, like me, why can’t this be fixed. I am sure there is a lesson here and as soon as I learn it the pain will subside. I just wish I was smart enough to see what it was.

So I guess I will continue to seek out the lesson. I will forge ahead using the examples I have shown here to be my guide for learning each day that there are people out there is worst shape than me. I have a great job, great friends, and a loving family. Come to think of it that’s the same things my granny and Dad had and they made it just fine.

So I guess it has worked. I just need to stop focusing on my pains and worries and just be thankful I have a support group that loves me and cares about me and let that be solace enough to at least open my eyes to the fact that it is not all about me and my pain. I have had others go before me that showed me this fact but for some reason until this moment I have never put into this prospective. So Granny and Dad I will use your example of selfless suffering to try to overcome whatever is standing in my way of getting better.

So once again I get up from this computer, somewhat slowly, but feeling better for being here. My all of your pains be controllable, short and life lessoned learned.

Peace,

The Blessed Man

Partner

When you see this word what comes to mind? In my life I have had many partners, some friends, other in business, and others in adventures that made lasting memories like in boy scouts. But this post is not about any of them. This post is about the most special partner I have, my wife.

I have written about almost everyone I’m close with except my wife. Yesterday, I realized that I had to rectify this at once.

It will be very hard for me to tell you about my partner. She is selfless, caring, forgiving, funny, true, loving, mean, beautiful, and helpful and a thousand other things I won’t mention. She is my rock. I can remember we were just starting out as a couple still in that feeling out stage. She often tells people that I was the thing that won’t go away!! I was called to the office; we worked together, and I was told I was being downsized out of the company. I will never forget going back to where she was and telling her. After the shock worn off she very calmly said we would be just fine. Then she told me the coolest thing. She said this time why don’t you do something you love. And you know what, I did, we have been living the life since that day.. That is an example of what a true partner does, when you are at rock bottom they are there to make sure you don’t miss the net.

Then there was the time my Mother came to visit. She was on kidney dialysis ever other day. She was right there to either take her or pick her up. She was also there to do the things I could not do, like give her a bath, fix her hair and in general take care of her. And she did this like it was her Mother. How many wives do you know that would make that sacrifice?

Then the largest sacrifice of all, my Son. She has always treated him as if he was hers. Now my son could never imagine a Mother treating their child like that but she always had his best interest at the core of every interaction they had and still does to this day. She told my son one day to call her son and ask him if this was how he was treated. He was afraid to because he knew the answer would have been; exactly!

Come forward to present day. I have always fancied myself a backyard gardener. I have had numerous gardens and for the last couple of years have had one in our backyard. I have terrible knees and sweat like a mule and the stamina of a yak. She is always there right by my side working harder than me. Staying out longer than me and doing anything and everything to make sure we have a wonderful garden. But then here is the kicker anytime anybody says anything she never takes credit for how this garden looks. She is beyond special to me.

We “lived in sin” as my Mother called it, for over 9 years. I can remember I asked her to marry me about every other day for 9 years. When she finally said yes we were married within two weeks. She always said she ran just fast enough for me to catch her! Well today she will tell you she waited too long to marry me. Our relationship is really no deeper than when we “Lived in Sin”, but I think we feel the commitment to each other that we now have is a bit deeper. We have been through a lot together. The death of parents, the caring for parents, the raising of children, mine, hers has been grown since we have been together. Each of us has changed careers or left one behind. We have come a long way baby. And I stand here proudly today telling you it is all because of her and her strength that I am the man I am today. It has been said that behind every good man there is a great woman. Well if I have any good in me at all it is because of this kind and gentle partner I have been blessed to be with in this life.

I try to tell her every night before we go to sleep how special she is I can only hope she hears how sincere I am when I tell her. I do not know what I would do if I ever lose her. I think I would simply curl up and go join her. She is my life, my rock, and my very reason to live on this earth. I only wish I could give her all of the things I want to. This is where she would tell me to stop it she has all she needs. That is just how she is. And that is the reason for this post; she is always in the background. Making everything look perfect before, and then cleaning dishes after one of my nightly dinner parties. Doing my clothes, laughing at my stupid jokes, always staying out of the lime light, but making sure I’m out front even if she did all of the work. A more wonderful partner the good lord has not made, and to think he blessed me with her.

Well there you have it, my partner a one of a kind woman whom I love with all of my heart. I can only hope that one day I can be to her what she is to me every day.

I think I will go see if I can find her and give her a huge hug and tell her I love her. Then I might just spring another dinner party on her just to see her say “that’s cool we will have a blast”! God I Love this woman!!!

Peace,

The Blessed Man

Pressure

I played football when I was younger and thought I understood pressure when we faced a third down play. As I got older then I thought I understood it again when my son was born and he would cry because he was hungry and the pressure of making sure there was something for him to eat. Today I again, thought I understood it as sale quotas and goals pile up near the end of the year.

I now understand it better than ever. My wonder wife is under tremendous pressure as her 92-year-old Mother has moved in with us, after the death of her Father in May. She has to balance so many things. Her Mothers safety, eating, cleanliness and general care; She also is trying to work during all of this as well. She does a wonderful job of keeping all of us taken care of, except her. She gives tirelessly of her time and talents so that the two people living here are taken care of as far as anything either of us ever need.

I pile it on her; I am coming to know, as I am always inviting friends over for dinner. I cook but she has the much larger job. Cleaning the mess as well as making sure her Mother is able to eat, then gets her up to bed and makes sure everything is taken care of perfectly for her. Then returns down stairs to try to get the kitchen in order for the next day. I can always tell when it is getting to her as she gets a little pissed at me when I do things I shouldn’t be doing. My wife takes care of EVERYTHING in my house. The bills, cleaning, clothes washing, drying and ironing! The entire time I am walking around totally oblivious to her situation. So sometimes she has to slap me back into reality! Today was such a day.

So pressure is not a third down play, putting food on the table or selling some commodity. Its having the women who birthed you living with you and placing your entire focus on her and trying to make a self centered husband happy as well.

I will try to do better for sure she deserves the very best just like she gives every person that crosses her path. A lesson this blessed man needs to learn and learn quickly!!

Maybe we take her and Mom to dinner with a special bottle of wine and an unspoken promise to try to put my self-centeredness behind me while Mom is here and try to lend a helping hand around this place.