group hug

As I headed home from the sawmill I drove past the packed out church lot where they are holding a funeral for a young man who took his own life. As a parent, I cannot think of any fate worse than burying your own kid yet it happens day in and day out. I remember when Carrie died and then Jason...victims of childhood cancer that ended their lives way too soon. I bought Jason's piano, the very one where he practiced scales and trills before the chemo robbed him of that pleasure. Carrie Beth was only five or six and the same age as BG. Her family lived in a duplex where BG's daddy ended up moving to after our divorce. Go figure that one. Those threads that run through life never cease to amaze me. Both were treated at the world renowned St.Jude center in Memphis.

Living in a small town is a real bummer in a lot of ways, but tribe wise it's good to know who has your back instead of relying on the good nature of strangers. I read a blog post gone viral today written by a young wife and mother who is juggling two jobs, college, kids and a husband. She speaks from experience when she writes that the poor cannot imagine ever NOT being that way. As a result of this she has started a career as a writer and is being supported by an online community. It's so sweet to read that she and her hubs are eating expensive pizza and staying in a nice hotel when she's come from weekly motels as home. Linda Tirado...remember that name because you'll see it again!

Remember I'm a Pollyanna at heart and all. That being said, when I witness random acts of kindness the likes of which have meant the world to me, I can't help but believe in the inherent nature of goodness. Of course the new Pope doesn't hurt things in the "keeping of faith" department. We rescued Oscar from some people who were sharpening their knives on his back so he's got quite a bit of neuralgia in that layer of scars which is sensitive. I've learned to not make any sudden moves when he's asleep because his high strung terrier ass will bite hand or foot. This time it was left hand and not deep enough to cause cellulitis like the time when Millie the HUGE brown lab chomped down on me. That was a whole 'nother life and story. Remind me sometime to tell it!

Actually some of my closest friends were people who were there that night on Watkins Street and most of them were men because I crashed the party to make a statement. I'm not sure now what it really was but by golly it got made! One time I got mouthy with a bitch friend's woman in a bar just for fun and then cried afterward as she yelled at me all the way out the door. Her guy Terry was my friend and I couldn't stand to not just get up in her face and tell her that everybody knew about how she was spreading it around and using him to help raise her boys. He and my ex- hub and brother Wheeler were inseparable in those days come party time and just because we were divorced he didn't get custody of all the guys. Just saying.

My husband grew up in a household where he thought his mother was his sister because she gave birth at age 16 to his puny little self. Never did find out who baby daddy was but I suspect a step brother. Nothing was ever acknowledged and he was raised by his grandma and stepgrandpa who died at the age of 55 in our old ICU. Needless to say it was not pretty because he had organic brain syndrome from years of alcoholism and work at a rubber plant which was mighty toxic at the time. As far as I know Sis still lives in Broadmoor.

One last thing before I go to the warm room and watch The Millers again. If you can read this and aren't hungry and are warm? You are blessed beyond belief. I know, I know...we take it for granted. But my mother is blind as a bat and warm as heck. If it gets much colder up here on the hill I may be sleeping on their couch.

I'll let ya'll know how it all turns out. Promise!