The Last

As everyone was enjoying their wonderful Memorial Day holiday weekend in a small local funeral home a passing happened that is landmark to a small group of brothers.  You see my friend Scott lost his mother this weekend.  She was the last of the parents of the three stooges as were so fondly referred to in our youth.  So now all we have is each other. 

Ricky, Scott and I were inseparable during our High School years.  Every weekend we were together and sometimes school nights.  We learned to drive together, learned to drink together, learned to fight together, and learned about girls together.  Well, all we could so to speak.  And our parent took us as each one theirs.  I can remember Scotts Mom and Dad getting on me as if I belonged to them.  We had to live by the same standards in each other’s houses as if we lived there!  I can remember in each place there were rules that were to be adhered to no matter what or who you were.

As I walked in the Funeral home on Saturday and I saw my friend.  He looked up smiled and eyes filled with tears.  You see I haven’t see Scott in over 15 years.  He said as we embraced I was hoping you would be here.  I looked up with tear filled eyes and told him I would be no other place.  We hugged for a while and then he realized we were being unmanly and awkwardly parted. What a special moment for me.  You see Scott was our wild child, after high school he fell into a rough group.  Joined a motorcycle gang and was a rather wild in all parts of his life. I can remember shortly after high school his parents had an annual gathering at their home.  The three stooges had always been included and we were once again.  Ricky and I showed up right on time and were catching everyone up on our doings since the last gathering and here comes Scott rolled up on his Harley dirty blue jeans, tee shirt, leather jacket, long bread and hair.  His Mother told him he had forgotten all of his raising and shouldn’t disrespect them as he was doing.  Scott not saying a word got back on his bike, and rode away.  Only to return in about 30 minutes in a three piece suit that he barley could get into. Vest buttons straining like a dike in Amsterdam, pants barely covering his boots, a shirt that he couldn’t have buttoned around his arm and a tie that is was obvious he had forgotten how to tie years ago.  But he was in the best thing he had.  His mother looked at him and walked over hugging him and kissed him on the cheek and whispered in his ear.  “I will never do that to you again.  You are my son and I love you just like you are.  Thanks for trying to please your Dad and I.  Don’t ever change”.  What a special moment we all had right then.  Well, that special lady is gone now and the three stooges are without supervision.  What a scary thought. 

As we visited at the funeral home it was like old times we relived many of our most legendary moments from the past.  All of Scott’s children standing agape as the stories seemed to get crazier as we continued.  His son finally looked at us and said y’all were a lot crazier than you ever allowed me to be.  To which Scott replied yep and that’s how it will always be.   We all laughed and enjoyed the time together. 

When the service was over we all made the promise to get together soon and try to stay in touch.  I sure hope we all do that.

I can just see the table in heaven right now.  Googie and Bobbie Faye, Ricky’s parents, Bernie and Roberta, Scotts parents, and Bill and Billie, mine.  Are all there reliving our escaped and laughing at the thought we always thought they never knew. And, I hope being proud of the job they did with all of us.  I know I am proud to say I am one of a few that had 3 sets of parents and didn’t come from a “Broken home” I had an extended home and at every place was loved, corrected, and cared for as if I was born into that family.  Talk about blessed.

God Bless each of you my parents.  And please be with the three stooges as we try to become whatever it is we will become. 

Thanks for the help…

Peace,

The Blessed Man

Lesson

I have heard it said that when the student is ready the teacher will appear. Sitting around my dining room table last night the student was ready and the teacher appeared.

As normal the family had gather for dinner, but we were very blessed that we also had members that have been a little low key as of late. We have, like all families, our troubles and trials. One couple in the family has been working through a very difficult time. They have endured the death of parents and friends. Just when they were gathering themselves back to normal they find out the wife has Breast Cancer. What a blow! However, true to her style she faced it head on and has been an amazing trooper through all of the treatments. I can remember my Dad’s treatments and how he was, so we have been there for them, but not been in their business. That was what I found during my Fathers ordeal that I was willing to let certain people inside, but only in small bits, and especially on my terms. We all have tried to make sure we were there whenever we could be. The girls of the family have been especially keen to the needs of this very special lady as she fights this battle. They have been there through all of the hair loss, the weight loss, and the exhaustion of the treatments. We have all focused our attentions as best we can on her and tried without being invasive to be there at every turn. When she had her last treatment there is a bell ringing ceremony that was attended by the other girls and what joy it was in the whole family that she had made it through this rigorous exercise and came out on the other side stronger than when she started. She is a tribute to strength and endurance when it is all on the line. An amazing example of positive attitude and face to the sun tomorrow will be better attitude that I’m not so sure I could emulate if the shoes were on these weak feet I walk on.

As I sat next to her husband, a pillar of a man, and one I had admired long before the events of the last year. I suddenly became aware of his struggles and hardships and how he has changed though out this process. He has always been a man of the utmost character and class. Standing up for his beliefs in circumstances and situations, yet always being willing to listen and respect your opinion even if it was different than his own. I have learned a lot from this guy, but not until last night did I learn the most important lesson of selflessness and how to put the needs of the whole out in front of the needs of self. I believe sometimes things are shown to you because the powers that be know and understand you can’t handle the stresses that would accompany the lesson, if given to you. This I believe was shown to me last night. As we sat there talking about how he has been there and seen the all that his lovely wife has endured he has always been there never leaving her side. He tracked her temperature making spreadsheets to track it for the doctors doing everything humanly possible to make sure she was as comfortable as possible, what a man! I loved the way last night he called her his “partner”. You could actually feel the love and respect he has for her and the genuine joy he has found in this circumstance and how he has used that circumstance to make his relationship with his partner even stronger than before this tragedy. I felt the feelings coming back of the times I spent caring for my Father. I loved my Dad and did my best to care for him, as best as this son could have, I only hope I did an OK job. I cannot imagine trying to do this for my wife and partner. Last night, sitting at my dining room table, I realized that he was the teacher and I was clearly the student. I have learned a great deal from this guy, as I have said before, but this lesson is a special one. How you can be there for someone who is your whole world and still hold it in the road and carry the load and never even give the slightest inclination you are suffering is amazing to me. Strength, my friends, that is strength.

I now think, thanks to his example, I can be there for any of the family that needs me. I will call on this lesson I was taught last night. See my friends face, smile and be grateful that he was willing to share his experiences with me that I can move forward through the mire and get to the other side. Because that’s the lesson here, there is the other side. If we are blessed all is good and we continue on better people for the trials. If it doesn’t work out like we want, as in my dad’s case, we continue on knowing we were there, and did the very best we could to make sure they knew we loved them and care for them. I am so glad my friend has shown me there is always the other side. How special. So the blessing here my friends is being reminded to love to people in your life with reckless abandon. Kiss your partner every time you walk by them. Give random hugs. Tell them you love them as you sit there and watch TV. Call your folks tell them you love them.. Hug your kids even if they hate it. Someday they would give anything for a hug from you, I promise. What a blessing family is.

Think I will go give my partner a huge hug and tell her she is my world and how special she is to me. Hell I might even call my son and tell him as well. Guess I have learned a little something here!! I am going to make a conscious effort to make sure the people in my life that are important know it.

What a great lesson, thank you my friend.

Peace,

The Blessed Man

Laughter

I had an experience last night that was as rare as a sasquatch sighting! The wife and I went to one of the many wines events we are privileged to go to on occasion and when we returned the Mother-in-Law needed to be fed. So my wife feverishly works to gather something on the plate after consuming 25 wines from the Rhone Valley. The Mother –in-Law comes down and sits at the table. We always try to gather around the table as a family so the wife and I sat with her. I was doing something on the computer and the wife making conversation. As I do, rarely, I felt the almost uncontrollable urge to make, shall we say, a man noise. I looked over an noticed the mother-in-law didn’t have her, "ears", in so I let her rip. Well the wife sat there in total disbelief! I never took my eyes off the screen. The Mother in law must have felt the movement in the force and ask the wife what was that? The wife tells her I “pooted”. Well the mother in law starts to laugh. She suddenly was out of control. She had her head thrown back eyes closed and laughing almost out of control. Well if you have ever been in a room where some one starts laughing like that it is more contagious than swine flu. Before you know it we are all sitting here laughing uncontrollably. I was the first to gather myself then the wife. Finally the mother in law gets it back together. She starts to eat again and damn if she didn’t almost choke because she started laughing uncontrollably again. The wife asks her what up and she says the coolest thing I have ever heard. She says” I can’t remember what was so funny I just know it was funny” well I fall in the floor laughing and here we go again. We sat at that table, 3 grown adults laughing like 3 year old kids for what seemed like 20 minutes. One would stop, then another would start and it was one of the most joyous things I can remember happening around that table. When it was finally over and the wife and I got into bed she said it was so good to see her mom laugh like that. I think about how many of us suppress the urge to laugh like that. You know that laugh that makes you snort, or makes that crazy sound when you breath in or the one that makes you ribs hurt. I have been blessed I laugh like that a lot. May we never lose the ability to laugh. I think I read somewhere the other day where laughing is good for you. Maybe that will explain my good health. I live by the rule we should laugh loudly at least one time a day.

As I sit here writing this I guess my wish for us all is when we are 92 years old we all have the ability to laugh that hard, especially if we do not know what we are laughing about. How cool is it to laugh simply for the pleasure of how it makes you feel on the inside. I hope I get to share many more laugh-a-thons with my family.

Once again proving how blessed we really all are, we have been given the ability to laugh. Not only at each other but at ourselves, more importantly.

Well I’m off to work and you can bet I will be looking for my laugh out loud opportunity today for sure.

Peace,
The Blessed Man

Lemonade

Everyone has heard the old adage “When life gives you lemons, simply make lemonade”. I have quiet a story for you here. As I might have mentioned here I had planned a very special vacation with my very special Memphis family.

As fate would have it this vacation was planned almost a year ago. We were all headed down to Mexico, Acapulco, to be specific in the summer. Well here comes the swine flu and Mexico was all but closed. We moved our trip to the first week of Feb. If you were in Memphis that week you know it snowed and iced on the last Thursday in January. Our flight to Houston to catch the flight to ACA was canceled. My wife jumped on the phone and began desperately trying to save this trip. She started looking for options, and finally were able to get a plan B. If we could drive to Jackson Mississippi on Saturday, we could catch a Sunday morning flight out of there connect in Houston and be in Sunny Acapulco by two pm. We were all over it.

I jumped on line and started trying to find a 12 passenger van I could rent here and drop off there. Every car and van rental company in Memphis was out of cars and vans!! What were we to do? I finally found a van but it had to be returned to Memphis, Light at the end of the tunnel I thought there is a way. I knew I was not going to allow Captain Crash, my son, to return the van lord knows I could not have slept for 3 days if that were the case. I call one of the family who came up with an amazing idea. He had access to a van and he thought he had access to a driver. This is looking better by the minute. He made some calls and sure enough it was going to work. We headed out the next afternoon at noon piled into this van and down 55 we went. One of the family had made, munchies, Tuna salad, pimento cheese. We had Brownies, Rice crispy treats and then came the real fun. The group had Mimosa’s and Screwdrivers, as well. I can tell you honestly I have never enjoyed a drive more than this 3 hours. A group of like minded adults simply driving to a place, to go to a place, so we cold be together for a week. It was magical. We arrived in Jackson safe and sound, got all checked in, and opened up some wine. As we thought about dinner we order pizza and salads and sat around drinking wine and having a blast. The dinner order is another post all together, as it was simply a CF if you will. Leave it to say the poor driver had to come back to our hotel 3 times!!! And the really cool thing about it was we just didn’t care so much. So we all got up the next morning and headed to our destination. We had a very uneventful trip to one of the coolest places I have ever been. We spent a week bonding, eating, drinking and simply enjoy being together. I will explain this place in more detail very soon here. But I have said all of this to get to this point. As we sat around on the last night there the question was asked what was your most special memory of this trip? As it when around the couches with all of us full from an amazing dinner sitting looking out at one of the most beautiful scenes I have ever seen, with the breezes blows lightly across our faces full of joy. This is a breeze that makes you forget your troubles, and makes you feel like you are wrapped in the arms of someone who loves you unconditionally.

In all families you have your nick name, same in ours. As the stories of best time of the week go around we come to the very special person we call “Baby Girl”. Now this is an angel that walks the earth. I have known a lot of people in my life but no one like her. She possess a heart of Gold, an eye for your needs, and always there to support and love you without question. She has had her trials, but through it all she has never lost her attitude. I wished I could bottle just a little bit of her and keep it for when I’m feeling a little down. She always spins whatever it is into the best possible circumstance. As you will see as I continue the story.


We get to "Baby Girl" she says I think the best time I had was the drive and the joy of being together on that trip to Jackson. As we all sat there looking out we suddenly all agreeded she had hit the highlight of the trip. We agreeded that without question that special trip down was the thing that set the tone for the entire vacation. I think it is best said in a text we all got from her.

“When life gives you lemons you make lemonade. When life gives you snow, drive around it. If everyone had a friend, that had the ability to get a van, who could find a driver, who would make a 3 hour drive so much fun, because with this friend, who has the van, who found the driver, we are on our way to sunny Acapulco with mimosa’s, screwdriver's and munchies. Now… that’s making lemonade ...”

Proving once again how truly blessed I am. As I sit here writing this in a house that is colder than I like. I simply close my eyes and go back to that special trip. May I always have the ability and the sense to make lemonade this sweet.

Peace,
The Blessed Man

Legacy

It is rare in your life, at least mine, when you get to see such a powerful word in life form. I had just such an experience last night. I have members of my Memphis family, I have often mentioned in this blog, and this story is about the patriarch of that family, Tony. Tone the Bone as he is known to his friends. This is an 81-year-old man. He can work a crew of men in there 30’s to death. He can build or fix anything that concerns construction. Come flying in the door at 6 PM shower, shave and get a glass of Chardonnay and then dance until after midnight. Up at 6 AM the next morning and do it all over again the next day.

Last night we were over at the house, he lives with his daughter and son in law whom are some of my closest friend in Memphis. As you know my Mother in Law lives with us and she is 92. She has lived quite a life, but that is another post. She was the driving force in a family that founded the largest church in Griffin Georgia. She is an astounding woman of faith. Tony is a devote Baptist, yes and he dances how cool is that!!!!

Last night as the guys were watching football and the girls were doing whatever girls do Tony grabbed Bobbie by the hand and said come on with me. He proceeded to the living room and with the help of another dear friend who played the piano started singing the old standard hymns from church. As I sat there watching this I started to realize just why this entire family is so special. He sat there singing and asking Bobbie, “ What do we sing next?” They sang every old standard I grew up listening to and a bunch I had never heard but that they knew every verse. They sang for almost an hour. It was the most fun I have seen Bobbie have since she has lived with us.

How does this relate to the word of the post? Quite easily, this family is made up of the most special people I have ever met. Each with a big dose of Tony in them; The Mother and Father are the most loving and thoughtful people you could ever ask for in your lives, more than likely coming from Tony. The children, there are four, are each special and different. Each a special personality, but at the core they are all like Tony. His influence on them is so very clear as I look at it now. They all hug and kiss not only their family, but also every one who they call their family members. They are always courteous and thoughtful. An example is anytime they come into the house they make the rounds of all the people there either introducing themselves to the new folks, and hugging and kissing the family. Since Bobbie has come to live with us they have taken her by the hand and made her theirs. This group of children, all older than 22 years of age, still has a huge place in their hearts for family and home. A rarity in this day and time, in my opinion.

As I sat there last night listening to him and Bobbie singing this hit me like a ton of bricks. This entire band of very special people all has the character of Tony. They have lived together for well over 30 years. Tony and his wife lived with the family since the daughter got married. The mother, Tony’s wife, battled cancer and passed away while living in this family home. Think could you live with you Father or Mother for over 35 years? I loved my Mother and Father endlessly but not to sure I could answer the question. I know I live with my Mother in Law today and she is proving to be a joy so maybe I could have done it!

What will be your Legacy? Will you entire family be a better group for the life you have lived? I can’t say mine will. My son seems to be getting better, but the battles are still numerous and sometimes rough. Will my good traits, if I have any, be passed along? Are the blessing in my life being shared like Tony shares his, so open and freely giving of himself and his talents. Maybe that is a good thing to try to do in this new decade. Be more aware of trying to pass along what little bit of good I might be able to share with my family and friends. It surely couldn’t hurt.

Well that is my New Year resolution to be more like Tone the Bone!!!! I promise you there are worst people you could emulate!!

Well I think I will go watch the Cotton Bowl and see if I can’t catch a glimpse of one of this special children I have just written about. She is on the dance Team for Ole Miss.
Might even take a glass of wine in there and enjoy the fire. Once again proving how blessed I am to have known Tone the Bone and his wonderful family!!