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Dark Before Our Dawn
Last week, I didn’t have a thing to say here. It was a dark week and love compelled me to get to work heading problems off at the pass. It began when my husband Jim wanted to “have a talk” as we sat drinking coffee on the patio early one morning. A pit formed in my stomach and it ended up being accurate intuition on my part. He said, “I’m on an island and I’m drowning. I need to do something.” When he can string words together to convey his thoughts, it’s a good day. And after being together 41 years, I can often fill in the blanks when I…
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My Dad, My Adversary
My four-year-old was sitting on a board hooked over the barber’s chair to make him taller. We had recently moved back to southern Illinois from Kentucky and I was reconnecting with people in my hometown. Monk the barber knew everyone and everything going on in the village boasting a population of 2,000. When he realized who I was, he switched the conversation. “How is ole Duck doing?” With nicknames like Monk, Duck, and Butt-cut, I didn’t know where this may be headed. I knew my daddy (Duck, short for Donald Duck) and Monk had some kind of history together from way back, so I wasn’t sure what he wanted to…
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Life Isn’t Fair
It is basketball season again and it brings to mind a heartbreaking lesson my youngest son, Wyatt, had to learn. Wyatt was born with a baseball in one hand and a basketball in the other. His older brother was about to turn five when he was born, so he was always trying to live up to his big bro’s standards . . . a tough job for one so much younger. No one let him win at anything for the simple pleasure of winning. He had to work hard to learn how to compete at an early age, because his brother was athletic, an honor student, and wanted to be…
