What Really Matters, According to Me

A treasured friend told me today that I’ve left my handprint upon her heart (she quoted a line from a song she heard on the way to SWEAT with me, and said it spoke to her of me). Of course, I felt a welling of emotion. She’s left her handprint upon mine, too. That’s what we do in this life, isn’t it (if we do it right)? We leave our marks upon each other, upon the rising generation, upon the land, upon whatever it may be that will remember us when we’re gone… As I write, I’m sitting in the room with my mother-in-law, as her breathing grows increasingly shallow by the hour and her feeble heart grows tired of beating. Her body is aged and failing. She’s lived a long and wonderful life. Not only did she bring six boys and a daughter into this world, but she raised them in the hills, on a farm, in a little two-room cabin, with no modern utilities. She raised happy children and happy grandchildren who were, and ever will be honored to call her mother. She did it right. This fine lady has le...

Grandma-Blackburns-Poems.pdf First Things First This is the day I was going to see you But I don't have time to visit. My onion hot bed is peeping through And I don't want to miss it. I'll be here on my knees all day Prayerfully watching this birthing. Tiny green shoots will find their way Row by row unearthing. Happiness A mocking bird stood on the perch The wind his feathers ruffled, Music came forth from the chimes His little feet he shuffled. Last Week The super bright October sunlight Brought me to my feet I saw at a glance, and what a sight Dirt I had left in the summer heat So I went for my Windex and Purex and top And a bucket with Spic and Spani . I scrubbed everything from bottom to top Find proof of it if you can. Don't Tell? Keep it right with God and it don't hurt who knows 10 When the path is trod, you're the one who chose i tre Forgotten Lunch East mountain range with sunrise spreading Oat field of green, fresh garden bedding Young tender plants a...

If I hadn’t before, I’ve recently come to appreciate these words: “I’m tired of the way that things have been…you break me down, you build me up…Pain, you make me a believer.” (Believer, Imagine Dragons 2017) It speaks of rising above pain and realizing (as I often say), it’s the struggle that makes us stronger. Pain: It makes us believers in many ways. We might have a ‘come to Jesus’ because of pain and suffering (sorrow is painful but can be motivating). We realize something needs to change. Pain means something is happening or needs to. Tears over a young-adult-child leaving home, tears over a spouse leaving home, problems at work, the way it feels when we dress ourselves, how it feels when we look in the mirror, or how we feel after sleeping; all of these can be painful. Everything from a headache after reading to a painful left foot because of the way we sit while driving; pain indicates change. The question: Is the pain a good sign (think growing pains), or a red flag that somet...

Instead of running to the doctor for every achy pain, I sometimes wait until Mr. Blackburn says something like, “Sweetheart, I really think we need to take you to see the doctor.” Waiting a little too long to tend to something persistent is how I recently ended up in the ER, where I gratefully received three well-placed, miraculously effective injections into my neck (one into the splenius capitis, and two into a couple of different locations in the upper trapezius). If I hadn’t waited so long, I might’ve felt better much sooner. Of course, I had my reasons for procrastination: other appointments that were pressing, had to take the grandkids home, I have responsibilities at work, etc… Besides, my provider is on vacation. I didn’t want to be another one of the summer or weekend ER visitors, either (among those with heat-exhaustion, water-related injuries, alcohol/drug overdoses, and people with reactions to severe sunburn or insect bites). Going to the doctor is generally inconvenient, ...

My mother used to say we spend two years teaching children to talk and the next twenty teaching them how and when to be quiet. I still smile when I think of that. She was one of those moms who had a lot of good things to say. She was blunt. She was honest. She was good. One always knew where he stood with her. She seemed to know what to say and when, and she knew when to be quiet. When to speak? That’s the question. It brings to mind the oldie about whether or not a tree falling in a deserted forest makes a sound. Of course, it does, but what does it matter, if no one hears it? It’s the same with the words we speak. We hope they mean something to the person upon whose ears they fall. We hope they convey the meaning we intend. In a perfect world, our words are well thought, articulated with precision, are registered by the listener without mechanical interference, are unfiltered by bias or cognitive errors, and the feedback from the listener demonstrates our true message was received t...

Some of you know my oldest son has Cerebral Palsy; severe spastic cerebral quadriplegia, to be exact. When DJ was almost a year old (in 1988), I began a crash course in neonatal neurology, pediatric developmental therapy, and Children’s Social Services. I embarked upon an eye-opening, life-changing journey to familiarization and exploration of a subculture in which parents of special-needs-children, raise their kids; a world previously unacknowledged by me at age 20. Most new moms don’t need to know what their newborn’s APGAR scores were at birth. We don’t have to know the meaning of terms like ‘periventricular leukomalacia’ or ‘hypoxia’ and how it can relate to hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy. Most moms don’t worry about contractures in their two-year-old and most never need to raise questions to the pediatric orthopedic surgeon about clonus, dystonia or dysplasia. After all, 99.8% of babies born in the US each year don’t have CP. Most don’t deviate from average developmental expectat...