“Blessed every day.”

 As I write this, the funeral of my cousin Bill Ellis is about to begin. 

The funeral will be held in the gymnasium of Harlan County High School, and when you have a funeral in a gymnasium, that says something about the number of people you expect.

My cousin Bill was from Harlan, Kentucky. Harlan is not a town with large churches or large places to “put on a show” in order to raise money. But it does have the gymnasium of the Harlan County High School. 

Bill’s death has hit me hard, and I think it’s because it happened so suddenly. 

Last Friday, December 30th, the family believes that Bill went out to burn some brush in a burn barrel, and the wind kicked up very suddenly. In trying to put the fire out, he suffered either smoke inhalation or a heart attack and died. The fire department was there for several hours until the fire was gone. 

He leaves behind a wife — his second wife, whom he married after the death of his first wife — a daughter, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and a host of relatives and a county full of friends. 

Bill was 18 when I was born, and by the time I was four, he already had a baby daughter. That was my cousin Kellie, and when my family would visit from Florida, she was my playmate. Bill and his wife would later have a son, Jeff. 

I remember a younger Bill with a slightly sarcastic sense of humor. During a visit to Florida, he once jokingly asked me if someone had hit me over the head with an ugly stick. But I also remember on one visit to Harlan seeing him play in a baseball game—I think a neighborhood league or something like that—and his team lost. He shook hands with the opposing team afterwards, saying, “Good game.” I thought, “Why is he doing that? They lost!” 

What I didn’t know was that I was witnessing an example of good sportsmanship. 

Bill, for many years, was known as “the voice of the Bears” (the Harlan County High School teams),  broadcasting football and basketball games on radio station WTUK. Sometimes his wife Tami would call the games with him, and he’d often play the trick of turning off her mike (joking that he could always turn the volume down on her radio.)

I last saw Bill in 2019, when I made a trip to scatter a portion of my mother’s ashes at her father’s grave. He and his wife had dinner with Susie, his sister; and me. He showed me a bookmark where he had pasted my father’s obituary. He hoped it wouldn’t upset me. I appreciated that Bill remembered my dad in that way. (Bill was the son of my father’s sister.) It was obvious by then that he was fighting health problems but he did not complain. He was like my father in that way; he would not complain about how bad he felt. 

In reading his obituary, I learned that Bill had been an elder in the Rosspoint Church of Christ. Being an elder is not an easy task. I have no doubt he handled it with grace. 

The obituary writer pointed out what I hope people will remember about Bill when they think of him:  When anyone asked him, “How are you?” his answer was, “Blessed every day.” 

Maybe that was why he had the attitude he had about his health struggles, and other tragedies he faced in life. Carol, his first wife, died of ovarian cancer.  A few years later, his son Jeff died suddenly. In the best tradition of “life must go on”, Bill, just a few days after his son’s death, called a ballgame on the radio, and afterwards, the winning team presented the game ball to Bill. He thanked them and encouraged them to keep on walking with God, no matter what, and reminded them that if they did so, they would be “blessed every day” no matter what the circumstances were. 

I went up for his mother’s funeral in 2004, and I remember him sobbing as he stood in front of her casket. Just because Bill knew he was “blessed every day” didn’t mean that he couldn’t be heartbroken at the death of a beloved mother. 

I have a hard time understanding how God could allow certain things to happen. I don’t understand why He doesn’t intervene. I’m guessing that Bill’s widow and the rest of his family will lie awake at night asking,  “why?”. Man has asked that question since the time of Job, and pat and easy answers just do not cut it. 

Perhaps, though, the answer is not, “why did this happen?”

Perhaps Bill Ellis was placed on this earth to remind us that, no matter what, God had blessed him every day . . . and that no matter what, if we trust God, we, too, can be “blessed every day.”

In loving memory,

William Wayne Ellis, January 23, 1945 - December 30, 2022.

Rest in peace, Bill.

Just my .04, adjusted for inflation. 

New Year’s writing on a bad day

 This year, I will write every day. 

Maybe it won’t be a lot of words, but I will write every day.

Whether on the current WIP (which has suffered a setback; I need a new reason for my big bad not to immediately shoot my hero) or in a journal, or here on the blog . . . I will write.

So why is today a bad day?

First off, I am not depressed. I do not have a black cloud hanging over my head and I’m not on the edge of tears. (I have also not seen a mouse since we came back from a short vacation to Florida). 

Yesterday I had a very bad headache, so I practiced some self-care and took some Advil PM and went to bed early. I woke up 10 minutes into the new year to the sound of fireworks. Many of my neighbors take advantage of any and every opportunity to set off fireworks. New Year’s is no exception. I did not find out until this morning that the Georgia Bulldogs won their playoff game at the stroke of midnight, just as the Peach Drop dropped. Now Bulldogs will be facing Horned Frogs (from Texas Christian University) for the national championship. And although I know which team I am rooting for, I am wondering what would happen if a real horned frog met a real bulldog in real life. (Bloodshed, maybe?)

Today we had church online; the service was pre-recorded and it was funny to see our preacher commenting on his own sermon in the chat room. (He and his wife are in Indiana at the moment because his wife’s father is ill.) 

Today I am also dealing with a bad backache between the shoulder blades. I think my back is getting revenge on me for all the driving we did in the four days of our vacation. We spent probably eight hours on the road getting to our hotel room in Ocala, several more hours the next day between driving to see my mother in law near Orlando, and then driving to our hotel room in Tampa. 

The next day I did driving (not hours of driving, though) when I had lunch with my BFF (she did most of the driving because she came up from Sebring). Then my husband did driving when we went to St. Petersburg to see my sister, her husband, and their daughter. 

And the next day, we spent nearly ten hours in the car from Tampa to home. Most of our time in the Atlanta area was spent crawling in a traffic jam. I was not shocked. 

Yesterday I spent more money than I wanted to buying groceries, but we will eat for some time. 

So I think my back finally said, “No more!” 

I did some self-care by taking an ice pack and lying down for a while; ended up taking a nap. 

Later this evening I will ask my husband for a back rub, probably with Biofreeze. 

It’s the back pain that’s making this day “bad”. But I am determined to write. 

Happy New Year, everyone.

Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.

Ten years later

Most of them would be in high school.

They should have had their first dates, first crushes, first loves.

Some of them should still be in the classroom doing the profession they loved. 

And at least one should still simply be a mother. 

But because of the actions of a deeply disturbed young man, 26 people died ten years ago today at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. 

Six were adults who worked at the schools:  the principal, teachers, and teacher assistants.  A seventh adult, the mother of the shooter (I will not name the shooter; he killed himself at the school), died at home, the first victim of the massacre.  

The other twenty were first-graders.

Let that sink in.

First-graders, with single digits showing their ages. 

What can I say that hasn't already been said about Sandy Hook? 

It remains the deadliest mass shooting at an elementary school. 

When you say "Sandy Hook" and "Columbine", people know immediately what you are talking about, and it is not simply a place name. They are names with horrible connotations of blood, of murder, of screaming parents and other adults, of first responders who probably still suffer from nightmares and other symptoms of PTSD.  

And as if the Sandy Hook parents weren't suffering enough, they had to endure the outrageous claims that "Sandy Hook was a hoax." When I was on the hunt for a conservative alternative to Facebook, I was part of such a group and when I mentioned Sandy Hook, the person said, "No one died at Sandy Hook. Show me proof that people died at Sandy Hook." 

I will not name the person that spent the most time tormenting the Sandy Hook families, except to say that every cent this person has should be divided among the families that lost loved ones. 

Seven adults and twenty children died a decade ago. 

Ten years later, nothing has changed.

Instead, we are society that has grown numb to mass shootings. Our ice thaws a bit when we hear about a school shooting. We scream our outrage, we offer our thoughts and prayers, we demand changes to gun laws . . . and then all the feelings die down until the next mass shooting. Lather, rinse, repeat.

What can I say that hasn't been said? Rachel still weeps for her children and cannot be comforted (see Jeremiah 31:15). 

What solutions can I offer that have not been offered?

Like a friend of mine said after yet another mass shooting, "I'm out of ideas." 

The only thing I know to do is remember the victims:  

Nancy Lanza

Rachel D'Avino

Dawn Hochsprung

Anne Marie Murphy

Lauren Rousseau

Mary Sherlach

Victoria Leigh Soto

Charlotte Bacon

Daniel Barden

Olivia Engle

Josephine Gay

Dylan Hockley

Madeleine Hsu

Catherine Hubbard

Chase Kowalsky

Jesse Lewis

Ana Marquez-Greene

James Mattioli

Grace McDonnell

Emilie Parker 

Jack Pinto

Noah Pozner

Caroline Previdi

Jessica Rekos

Avielle Richman

Benjamin Wheeler

Allison Wyatt

In memoriam, December 14, 2012.

May their memory be a blessing.

Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.

Rodent's Revenge?

Back when Windows 3.1 was a thing, it included a game called Rodent's Revenge. The player played the role of a mouse who went after cats. When it trapped the cat, the cat would turn into a piece of cheese, then slowly disintegrate.

While my family and I have not yet disintegrated into cheese, I think we may be players in a game of Rodent's Revenge.

A week ago Thursday, the exterminators came out and set traps and sealed up every place they could think of where rats were coming into the house.  We thought that would solve the problem.

Ha!

Recently, Matthew said he'd seen a rat in the kitchen, dashing across the floor and heading for the corner where the garbage was. I think I know where the rat may have gone. (No, Jimmy Cagney didn't give it to him through the door.)

I've also seen what I think is fresh rat poop in the house. So I'm keeping an eye out for where the poop is. The exterminators will be coming back next week and I can tell them where I think the rats are coming/going.

But I'm convinced that the rodents are getting their revenge in other ways.

On Sunday, I noticed that the house was unusually cold. It was either that day or the next that Matthew wanted to know if we had "an air conditioner for the heater" (meaning the thermostat setting.) I tried to get the thermostat to work and could not.

We called the pros, who came out and discovered that the heat and power upstairs had been turned off.  I think the power had been turned off to the central heat/air, and it wouldn't surprise me if the exterminators had turned it off for safety reasons while they were working in the attic.

The pros turned the head/power back on, and voila, we had heat again, for the price of $95.  (I'm reminded of the story attributed to Henry Ford who, when he had a problem with his plant, called a friend of his, who immediately fixed the problem and sent him a bill for about $1,000. When Ford demanded to know, why are you charging me so much? the friend itemized the bill:  "For tinkering: $10. For knowing where to tinker: $990.")

Okay, problem solved.

Until yesterday.

I went to physical therapy at 8 a.m., and planned to go to Starbucks afterwards so that I could finish a job due at noon. But when I came out from PT, I discovered a flat tire.  So I contacted AAA through the app, and got the message that AAA's ETA was 12:47 p.m. It was approximately 9:45 a.m.

I emailed the people I proof for and said, my assignment will be late. They said, this is a assignment that has to be turned in today, we can extend it a few hours but no more. (Which I understand. The legal profession works under tight deadlines.)

So, I decided to pull out my trusty computer and work while I was waiting. Here I am, sitting with the driver's seat pushed back as far as it will go, listening to a recording and checking the transcript as I'm going along.

Around 11:30, I got a text saying, your dispatcher is on the way; and then I got a phone call a few minutes later from the AAA worker saying he'd be there in about 25 minutes.

He arrived, changed my tire, and chatted with me very nicely while he was working. When the tire came off, I immediately saw the problem. I'd run over a screw. (Yes, my tire was officially screwed. As I write this, my husband and I are at Pep Boys getting it fixed.)

He finished about 12:15, and I immediately got into the car after being told that "you can't drive over 50 miles an hour on that spare". All the way home, I kept thinking about the Sammy Hagar song, "I Can't Drive 55."

I got home at 12:45 p.m. and told my husband what had happened, and said, leave me alone for the next 40 minutes while I finish. He made lunch for me while I was finishing the job.

Job was finished at about 1:40 p.m. When I turned it in, I immediately got a "thank you" from the people I proof for. (I'd also got a "thank you" email from them when I said, I have my computer with me so I can work while I wait.)

So, that problem was solved . . . but as the old Ronco commercials said, "But wait! There's more!"

I had been wearing a long sleeved blue shirt and during PT, I noticed a hole in one of the sleeves. So I thought, "Oh, it's a small hole and I know how to darn holes. I'll get some embroidery thread the same color and fix it."

Last night, when I took off that blue shirt, I discovered more holes.

In BOTH sleeves.

They resemble the holes that are in a pair of my jeans.

I think the rat(s) decided they wanted a midnight snack. It's interesting that they enjoy the color blue.

And, to top it off, there is a small spot on a Rubbermaid container where we're currently keeping the potatoes where it looks like something has gnawed on it. (Yes, I know we are supposed to keep potatoes in ventilated storage. At the moment, we do not HAVE ventilated storage for our potatoes that will protect said potatoes from the rats.)

Is it any wonder that I think the rodents are having their revenge?

If you hear of some slowly disintegrating pieces of cheese in the metro Atlanta area, take off your hats, hum "Taps" and make sure someone gives us all a heartfelt eulogy.

Then go on a war against any rat you find.

Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.

Oh, rats!

 The title of this piece has nothing to do with a common expression of frustration from Charlie Brown and the Peanuts gang.

Rather, it has to do with literal mice.

It all started when Matthew came running to me one morning, saying, “I saw a rat in the kitchen!” 

I followed him, asked him where he’d seen it, and he pointed towards a corner of the kitchen.  I looked there, couldn’t see it, but I was sure he’d seen something.

Next, I started noticing teeth marks in the bananas we kept out on the counter. 

Finally, while sitting in the living room one evening, I saw a nose, whiskers, eyes and ears poke themselves out from behind our small couch. I said, “Oh, hello. Glad to meet you.” He turned around and ran back behind the couch. 

I nicknamed the creature Jimmy Cagney, as in, “You dirty rat!” (This is probably a good place to mention that Cagney the actor never said, “You dirty rat!” in any of his movies. The closest he came was in the 1932 movie “Taxi!”, where he yelled to his brother’s killer through a locked closet: “Come out and take it, you dirty yellow-bellied rat, or I’ll give it to you through the door!”)

We set out some mousetraps, and one of them caught Jimmy Cagney. 

End of problem, right?

Uh . . .wrong.

I started noticing teeth marks in the bananas a few days later. I begged my husband, can we PLEASE call an exterminator? 

At the same time, we both started seeing rats skittering across the floor. Yes, that was “rats” in plural.

The exterminator came out, explored the house, and informed us that we had rats because he could tell by their droppings. Among other things, he told us that our crawlspace was full of rat droppings. 

Gee, thanks.

He scheduled a date for the team to come out, gave me the cost, which promptly went on the credit card. Sorry, Dave Ramsey, but this was a case where we NEEDED the credit card.

In the next few days and weeks, I saw two rats race around the house, mostly in the living room, dining room, and kitchen. Before I realized there had been rats in the house, I’d found two neatly arranged piles of dryer lint, one in the downstairs bathroom, the other in a corner of the kitchen. (Hey, even rats want comfortable places to sleep.)  I also saw one mouse scurry up the stairs. I don’t know where he/she/it ended up.

When I discovered holes eaten in a pair of my jeans that I’d left in a laundry basket downstairs, I declared war.

I would have been willing to accept unconditional surrender and a humane execution at this point, allowing said rats blindfolds and final cigarettes and maybe a final kiss from a loved one. 

But the final straw came when one rat skittered from behind the small living room couch into a corner of the dining room, skittered back into the living room and under the small couch . . . and then skittered out from under the small couch, towards the big couch — where I was sitting — and headed STRAIGHT FOR MY FEET.

I jumped up, grabbed my iPad, which I was using to chat with my BFF, and ran upstairs. 

That was the moment where I decided I would accept nothing but complete and total annihilation and obliteration.

I named the rats Ben and Willard, after two horror movies from the 1970’s featuring killer rats. I have no idea if they’re both male, both female, or one of each, and I refuse to get close enough to find out. 

They have put teeth marks in my bananas, they have taken a nice big bite out of an apple, and a nice big bite out of a potato. Putting out mousetraps for them did not work. These rats are too smart for that. In fact, they are so smart that they managed to knock down a box of crackers from the top of my pantry! 

They’ve skittered across the kitchen floor under the stove. 

And, on Halloween day, while I was in the bathroom, one of them slithered under the crack in the bathroom door! I gasped and it turned around and went out. (It would have been appropriate if I had squeaked.) 

Well, today, the cavalry has arrived. 

As I write this, the extermination company we hired is going around the house, sealing the entry points and setting traps. They will come back on the 22nd to see how well the traps have worked. 

This time, the rats will be the ones getting it through the door!

Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.

"Now I have hate!"

 I don't know why, but lately I have been thinking of Natalie Wood's final scene in the 1961 version of West Side Story. 

Tony, her lover, has just died in Maria's arms.  She stands up, Chino -- the man who's just killed Tony -- hands her the gun. She wants to know, "How do you fire this gun. By pulling this little trigger?" Then, she points the gun towards the group of Jets, then the Sharks, and shouts (paraphrased), "You killed him. All of you. And my brother. And Riff. Not with guns and bullets. But with hate. Well, I can kill too. Because now I have hate!" 

Maria began West Side Story as an innocent young girl, experiencing her "love at first sight", planning to run away with him because he's in danger from killing Maria's brother and he knows the gang will be out for revenge. Somehow, she retains her innocence . . . until that final scene. 

You see the hardness fall on her face first, then hear it in her voice when she wants to know how do you fire this gun? Then you see her grief when she throws herself over Tony's body, screaming, "Don't you touch him!" 

She knows she has to let him go. So she whispers, "Te adoro, Anton."  Then remains kneeling on the concrete while the Jets and the Sharks -- now working together for the first time in their lives, probably -- pick up Tony's body and carry it away. 

A gang member then covers Maria's head with a shawl, a sign of mourning for a woman who has lost a husband.  In Maria's case, she has lost a lover. Then she, in her red dress, with her shawl-covered head, stands up stoically and follows the Jets and the Sharks offstage.

Maria did not, at that moment, give into her hate by firing the gun.

But I wonder how she handled her hate later.

Her line, "I can kill now, because I have hate!" has run through my mind for some reason. 

Don't the majority of murders happen because of hate? 

Doesn't it start with hate?

Hate of a particular person for an actual or perceived wrong?

Hate of a particular group because of a past history of wrongs done to them?  Or hate of a particular group because you feel threatened by them? 

And what other crimes start with hate? 

Come to think of it, what else starts with hate? Or cultivates hate? Believing, "I'm right, you're wrong, and if we don't agree, we can't be friends? And not only can we not be friends, we can't even talk to each other anymore?"

Do I, Tina, have hate? 

I would love to stand up and say, "No, I am not a hater. I don't hate people. I don't allow myself to be consumed with hate."

That wouldn't be true. 

I've hated people, hated groups of people, let hate eat me up and eat me alive. 

Sometimes hate can be good. Hating prejudice and bigotry, didn't that lead to the Civil Rights Movement? Didn't the hate of being mistreated lead to others having compassion because they didn't want to treat others the way they were treated? 

But too often, hate leads to a Tony, dead on a basketball court, and a Maria, first cold and angry, then grief-stricken. 

Did she carry her hate with her? Did she use her hate to promote non-violence? Did she use herself as an example of what gang violence can do to a person? 

Or did she let her hate eat her alive?

That's a good question for me.

Have I, am I, letting my own hate for whatever eat me alive? 

I don't like how we are being eaten alive by hate in this country these days. I don't like how political candidates attack one another so viciously. I don't like how other candidates take advantage of hatred of a particular group and stir it up just so they can gain votes. 

My question is, how do I not allow hate to eat me alive? 

Our pastor has been doing a series about the fruit of the Spirit. He's from a construction background, and not only does he use the term "fruit" to describe love, joy, peace, etc., he also uses the word "tools" to describe using "love, joy, peace," etc. 

I wonder if these "tools" are the way to not allow hate eat me alive. And these tools and fruit are "of the Spirit". I cannot fight hate by simply writing down a "to-do" list of "how not to hate", forcing myself to be nice to someone while gritting my teeth. 

No, I can only fight hate through reaching out for the power of the Spirit. And he is more than willing to give it. 

I do not want to be Maria, saying, "I can kill, too, because now I have hate!"

Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.

Why I remember

 “No one ever remembers.” 

Those four words, posted on my wall on a now defunct social media site, broke my heart. 

The woman who posted them was replying to my acknowledgement of the anniversary of the stillbirth of one of her children. He was a twin; the other twin was miscarried earlier in the pregnancy. 

Today, October 15, is National Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Day. The entire month of October is dedicated to remembering these babies; these babies lost through miscarriage, lost through stillbirth, or lost through early death. 

I have never lost a baby. I don’t know that heartbreak. I know the heartbreak of trying to conceive and failing, of many doctor’s visits, and of finally conceiving and having a son. But not everyone has that happy ending. 

I do, however, know many who know the heartbreak of miscarriage, the heartbreak of stillbirth, the heartbreak of losing an infant to death. A friend just lost a longed-for child through miscarriage and had to have a D&E in order to remove the fetus. 

Two other friends lost their babies to cord accidents, where the umbilical cord strangled the baby in the womb.

Other friends have lost children to stillbirths or early death.  

By coincidence, National Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Day falls on the the day before my birthday. I was not meant to be born in October. Instead, I came early. Perhaps I could have been one of those statistics, a lost baby that my mother remembered. I was lucky. Not everyone is. 

My grandmother lost an infant daughter, Bobbie Lee, when the baby was three months old. She was “Bobbie Lee” because she was named after my grandmother’s father, Robert Lee Thompson. I have a copy of her death certificate, which lists her birthday as August 1st, 1935; and her death date as November 13, 1935.  Her cause of death was “gastroenteritis”. My grandparents lived in Harlan, Kentucky, a small, coal-mining town, and it was 1935. Had she been born today, I think the odds of her survival would have been much better. 

She never talked about Bobbie Lee much, except for at least one conversation with me and perhaps with a few others. In 1935 especially, I think the death of an infant was met with, “At least you have other children,” or, “You can have another one,” (as if one child could replace another.) And then you didn’t talk about it. 

There is a saying, “There is no footprint too small to leave an imprint on this world.” 

Today, so many remember those little footprints; those ones that were never born, those born sleeping, those who lived only a little while. 

I have a list of babies I remember this time of year. 

So:

For Ana C.

For Anna V.

For Bobbie Lee C.

For Caley A.

For Desmond M-S.

For Hope C.

For Hope K.

For Ian A.

For Sarah Grace W.

For William W. 

And for the many others I’m sure I’ve forgotten and the many others I do not know.

You lived in someone’s womb and you lived in many hearts.

And your little footprints left a mark on this world. 

“No one ever remembers.”

Someone should.

This is why I remember.

Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.