Yesterday you might have read an exchange between Guss and me in the comments where I mentioned Mama and Dada.

These were the two fine people who raised us in their older years.

Mama was our grandmother’s sister, our great-aunt. Dada was a full-blooded Mohawk who fell in love with a woman from our tribe, and when she died, he put his children in private school and boarded with our great-grandmother and great-aunt.

I don’t know a day in my life up until the age of 23 when I didn’t have Mama and Dada.

She was the strict one. Sometimes I used to say she’d start hollering from the time her feet hit the floor in the morning until she put them in bed at night, but that’s not true.

She had a sense of humor, but we were held accountable for our mistakes, even if she tried to help us out of any trouble we might have gotten into.

Though she was technically a full-blooded Penobscot Indian, she had the most steely blue eyes that could bore right through you if you were lying to her.

You could tell if Guss was lying because his ears turned red. He doesn’t lie now but his ears turn red when he’s teasing and he is a tease. He used to make me so mad by teasing me and then when I’d go after him he’d take off and play with his friends for the day and I never caught up with him.

Dada went to Carlisle Indian School in Pennsylvania, where he learned just about every trade there is. His roommate was Jim Thorpe. Yes, that Jim Thorpe.

So many times I’d hear him talking of Jim Thorpe and never paid attention. I wish I had listened to those anecdotes now.

Dada was hit with a steel beam in construction, and as a result, went deaf and had a broken nose he never got fixed. He had huge hands.

Dada was a teaser too. He’d say something to tease us and then put his hand over his mouth and shake his body laughing quietly.

One evening Guss and I put on boxing gloves and started boxing in the kitchen where Dada hung out.

Surprising myself, I began to beat Guss by getting him near the refrigerator and punching. I can still hear Dada saying, “Atta boy, Sister! Atta boy!” He always called me “Sister” and had a nickname for Guss from the day he first saw him. Guss loved him so much he even smiled at him the first time he met him as an infant.

When it came time for him to get angry enough to think we deserved a spanking he would reach for his belt. It didn’t take more than once for me to realize it was better to take the punishment than to run because it was worse when I got back. When I saw the belt get unbuckled I just leaned over his knees and got my spanking, which, as I recall, was not that serious.

Dada insisted we do our alphabet when we were in kindergarten and to learn how to write our names. Every night we sat at the oak dining room table and went through our exercises. (Despite his best efforts, my handwriting is atrocious.)

Dada was a hard worker and was digging huge trenches in our front yard to fix the plumbing when he was in his sixties and after a long day’s work.

Mama made baskets all day and was also an efficient housekeeper, although making me clean the corners of the stairs to her satisfaction got to be a bit tiresome because I had to re-do them so much. The centers were perfect, but I could never seem to get the corners right or the huge bathroom just right either.

My mother decided she wanted me when I was twelve years old and I moved in with her. I still had the values instilled in me by Mama and Dada and knew I could go to them and talk to them at any time. With Dada I had to put my mouth up to his right ear and tell him in a normal voice what I wanted to say.

Mama had a stroke when she was 73 and her brother put her into a nursing home, where she died five years later.

After I was married I moved out of state, but when my husband went overseas for a year I moved back home and took Dada down to see her at least every other week. He would stop and buy her ginger ale and ice cream.

Watching him pull himself up by the bars on her bed to give her a peck on the cheek made me realize these two wonderful people I loved so much really loved each other too.

They started raising us when they were in their mid to late fifties and early sixties. They didn’t have to do what they did for us, but they did it and they loved us just because.

Today I salute Mama and Dada and I’m sure Guss feels the same.

God broke the mold when He made them.

(Guss, if you take this post down I’m going to come up there and get the boxing gloves out again. )

This video stirred emotions in me which had been dormant for a very long time. It reminded me of a time (and I was one of these kids) when another war became unpopular in this country due to politics and how our returning military members were treated.

From the site which posted and composed the video these words were so touching:

The inspiration for this video comes from the Family Support Group for the unit I supported while I was a recruiter. I finally saw first hand how it isn’t only the soldier who sacrifices for this country. I saw how sometimes the world forgets how much the children of our Armed Service Members really sacrifice.

This video is for the kids… it’s for every concert or soccer game their parent miss. It’s for every band or choir concert their parents watch on video thousands of miles away. This video is for how much we really love our kids - and why sometimes mommy and daddy have to be away. Its because we don’t leave because we don’t love our kids - it’s because we leave BECAUSE we love our kids.

I hope for these children when their Moms and Dads return from Iraq or Afghanistan the people in this country will swell with pride and thank them for their service.

To every military family out there, know that there are prayers said and thoughts of you each day. Know there are those here who do understand your mission and support you and your families without fail. Washington may control policy but they will never control the hearts of those who care.

Note: If you cannot see the video on this post or are having trouble viewing it please go here and view.

Many days the news if filled with information which is cycled over and over until we all feel we could recite it in our sleep.

Once in a while there are a few stories which could apply to any of us which get one quick sound bite and then are gone into news history.

While we have all had accidents of one kind or another, this brought a few tears to my eyes.

Woman Accidentally Runs Over Her Family With New Van
Friday, June 01, 2007

ANNAPOLIS, Md. — A woman trying out her new van accidentally hit four members of her family, including her infant daughter.

Police said the accident happened at an Annapolis apartment complex just before 10 p.m. Thursday, when the Patel family gathered to see their new Honda Odyssey. The woman driving — 35-year-old Urvashiben Patel — accidentally hit the gas instead of the brakes and ran into her family gathered on the steps of the complex’s community center.

I am sure there are those who would criticize another for a mistake such as this, but I feel nothing but compassion for this woman who will live forever with the memory of an innocent mistake.

After readingthis story though, I must admit I felt a bit conflicted.

Two toddlers wandered away from their home in northwestern Pennsylvania while their baby sitter slept and accidentally drowned in a nearby pond.

The baby sitter told authorities she put the girls down for a nap Wednesday morning and that she also took a nap. When she woke up, 20-month-old Jenna Walker and 2-year-old Maggie Kovski were missing from the house, the baby sitter said.

She found their bodies floating in a small, man-made fishing pond about 100 yards (90 meters) away from the home and frantically tried to help them.

I have devoted the better part of my life attending to children and I must say that there have been many days when they were resting I would have loved to close my eyes and do the same. One can certainly espress some compassion for this baby sitter as she will close her eyes each night and see these images. It would not be my place to lay blame at her feet, she will I am sure do enough of that herself but this story serves as a reminder that all children are someones most precious commodity. When they are placed in your care, those who love them most should anticipate you’re acting responsibily.

Also I wonder how the parents and the brother of this toddler will ever recover from this accident.

Cops: Toddler Dies After Climbing Into Dishwasher, Starting Cycle
Friday, June 01, 2007

An 18-month-old boy died Wednesday of suspected heat exposure after he climbed into a dishwasher that started running, police said.

Authorities are still investigating, but said it appeared the boy’s death was accidental.

This is probably the hardest, most emotional scene that these investigators will ever work,” said Chief Deputy Jeremy Clark of the White County sheriff’s office.

Blake Kurck was found dead in his home near the White County town of Romance at about 1 p.m. Wednesday, the sheriff’s office said. The boy’s 13-year-old brother found him inside the appliance, which was running, authorities said.

“The baby’s blanket was lying in front of the dishwasher, so (the brother) opened it,” Clark said.

Sorry for the downer stories but when I read and see Rosie, Anna Nicole and Britney Spears in the news pages day in and day out, I think it is time to get back to reality and the heartaches and challenges us “regular people” face each day.

I just read this short story on CNN.com and it has touched me in a very personal way.

Amid the sounds of mortar and machine-gun fire, a father and son both serving in Iraq were reunited in Baghdad after spending more than a decade apart.

Army Master Sgt. William McGraw and his son, Pfc. Logan McGraw, 21, met last week at Baghdad’s Camp Victory in a two-day reunion arranged by the military, the Los Angeles Times reported Monday.

“Logan, I am your father,” were William McGraw’s first words.

The two last saw each other when Logan McGraw was 8 years old. They met only once before that, more than seven years earlier as his parents were getting divorced. As a child, he moved around with his mother, a Kentucky-based sergeant.

“I have a chance to finally know my son. I’m excited about starting over again,” said William McGraw, 45. “But reality sets in; we know this is a war zone and there are soldiers missing and people dying.”

In Baghdad, they embraced and bantered about sports and family life, including the younger McGraw’s 2-year-old son Douyniall.

“It took a little bit longer than I hoped for,” Logan McGraw said of the reunion. “But at the end, it came down to having a relationship later down the road and finally being able to communicate with each other.”

Logan McGraw’s unit was set to return to Taji, about 20 miles (32 kilometers) north of Baghdad. He was deployed in April. William McGraw had been in Iraq for 24 months and was scheduled to redeploy to Atlanta this week.

I have a similar story and that’s why this touches me so deeply. I pray Logan stays alive and gets out of Iraq in order to get to know the father he has never had the chance to know until now.

newton has been a good blogging friend of mine since she and I were the only bloggers on Oh How I Love Jesus. She moved with me and my partners to HRP but continued to write on OHILJ until I shut it down earlier this year.

She has written an email to me that breaks my heart.

There is a lady from her church who has 3 children, the youngest I believe is seven years old. Her husband left her after the third child was born and she became a nurse to support her family.

Monday night she suffered a severe stroke and there is absolutely zero brain activity on the monitor. She is technically dead, but her eldest daughter, who is married and a mother of two, has full power of attorney and I assume full medical power of attorney, and cannot give up her hope that her mother will live, so she will not allow her mother to be taken off the machines that are keeping her alive.

I fully understand how this girl feels as I was in the same situation seven years ago, and I held out hope my mother would come out of it.

I finally realized she was between two worlds and had to go to one or the other and since she wasn’t strong enough to come back to us I told her to go with the Lord.

Making a decision to pull life-sustaining equipment from your parent or anyone you love is the hardest thing I’ve ever been involved in.

I know the heartbreak this daughter and the other children are feeling. Thankfully, a sister of the mother has arrived from New York and will hopefully will give them good advice and, along with Jesus, will be their rock.

I have known of people who have died even while on life-support and I ask if she is to die that we will all pray this is the case for her so her daughter will not have to carry the guilt and she will not be forced against her will to do it by the doctor as we were.

Sweet, kind-hearted newton sent this amendment to her original email and asked me to ask you folks to pray for her friend:

Her name is Karen. Karen V. Originally from Brooklyn, NY.

She is not famous, nor rich. But right now, in the Lord’s presence, she’s a superstar.

(Daniel 12:3)

Please pray for Karen and her family during this difficult time.

Update from newton

I was at church about two hours ago. The secretary there told me that, as of last night, the machines were turned off: her kidneys and liver were taken off her for transplant purposes.

No one, not even the pastor, has any idea as to what kind of funeral arrangements are to be done. Her ex-husband said he was going to do all of that. As of this morning, so far, he has done nothing.

May she rest in peace. It is not unusual to not have funeral arrangements made the morning after a death.

It is wonderful when you hear a parent refer to their child as a gift from God and a true blessing. Well, this family has certainly had their share of “presents.”

LITTLE ROCK — The Duggars are once again pulling out the pink ruffles and lace as they prepare for the birth of baby number 17.

Michelle Duggar said Monday in a telephone interview from her northwest Arkansas home that the whole family is excited about the arrival of the baby girl they will name Jennifer Danielle, keeping with the family tradition of giving the child a name that begins with J.

I cannot begin to tell you the admiration I have for these parents and the obvious time and energy they have devoted to these children:

The Duggars home school their children at their 7,000-square foot home in Tontitown. The couple’s oldest child, Joshua, is 19, and their youngest, Johanna Faith, is 19 months. Their children include two sets of twins.

It’s become less common to hear of large families due mostly I believe to financial and time constraints. How heartwarming to read a story of people so willing to accept their “gifts” with such grace. May God continue to bless this whole clan for years to come.

How in the world could one justify this situation:

She had raised her daughter for six years following the divorce, handled the shuttling to soccer practice and cheerleading, made sure schoolwork was done. Hardly a day went by when the two weren’t together. Then Lt. Eva Crouch was mobilized with the Kentucky National Guard, and Sara went to stay with Dad.

A year and a half later, her assignment up, Crouch pulled into her driveway with one thing in mind - bringing home the little girl who shared her smile and blue eyes. She dialed her ex and said she’d be there the next day to pick Sara up, but his response sent her reeling.

“Not without a court order you won’t.”

Divorce, separation and child custody battles are not unique to the US military. However, Federal law which protects those in harms way evidently offers no guarantee that a deployed single parent with custodial rights will maintain that status upon their return.

A federal law called the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act is meant to protect them by staying civil court actions and administrative proceedings during military activation. They can’t be evicted. Creditors can’t seize their property. Civilian health benefits, if suspended during deployment, must be reinstated.

And yet service members’ children can be - and are being - taken from them after they are deployed.

Individual states have begun to address this issue and are initiating laws to insure the rights of these parents. Perhaps the federal government should do the same..for the sake of those fighting for our country and the welfare of their children.
Servicemembers Civil Relief Act
here.

We read in Proverbs 22:6 these words:

Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.

In Ephesians 6:4 Paul tells us:

And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.

The Bible talks about children quite a few times. Jesus admonished His disciples for not allowing the little children to go to Him, because He said Heaven is made of such as these.

Being a grandmother has given me more pleasure than I could ever have imagined, although I loved and do love my own children. It’s just that I’m older now and more patient and appreciative of the children since I don’t have to worry about raising them full-time.

My big regret is our son lives in Texas and we get to see our two grandchildren from him only about once a year. We’ve missed a lot of pleasure with them.

Our youngest grandchild is now five and a half years old. I can remember taking him to the school to pick up his older sister and letting him get used to walking in the grass, as he was afraid to step on it.

I remember the joy of watching him discover “bufflies” (butterflies) and him chasing them. I remember his fascination with blowing the white off dandelions after I had taught him how to spread this weed.

I remember how interested he was in feeling the crunch of fallen leaves under his feet for the first time and him chasing them when the wind blew.

Watching birds and squirrels in the yard through the window on cold days was such a pleasure, and it’s all because I was seeing the world for the first time again as a child.

The sweet innocence of children. That’s what Jesus was talking about when He said to allow the children to come to Him because Heaven was made of these things. He meant the sweet innocence of faith and belief that we lose as we get older. He didn’t mean only children will go to Heaven, but that we have to have the faith and innocence of a child to believe, by faith, what God has done and continues to do for us daily.

Ryan is interested in Star Wars characters now. He’s not allowed to see the movie until he’s 8, he told me. He’s been begging my husband for some little Star Wars characters so he can play with them. My husband bought some but then told him he’d spent enough money on them and wasn’t going to buy anymore. Ryan offered to break into his piggy bank for the money but my husband told him he’d better discuss that with his Mommy and Daddy.

That night I got a telephone call from Ryan asking if Dah was here. Dah wasn’t at home at the time, and I told him he wasn’t. Then came, “Will you get Dah to buy me some more Star Wars characters, or do you want me to do it?”

Needless to say, my heart melted. We got Dah on the cell phone and discussed it with him and came up with the following solution:

Ryan would walk our cocker, and not let her loose, and he would clean the toilet bowls (don’t ask me why, but he loves to clean toilet bowls), in return for Dah buying the Star Wars characters.

We set up chores for his sister also so she could have some extra spending money on a Safety Patrol trip she’ll be taking right after school gets out.

We keep the kids every other week-end at night and this is our week-end to have them.

When they came over Friday night Ryan went right to work walking the cocker. We decided to have him do the toilet bowls on Saturday. In his five year old innocence he couldn’t understand the concept of us lending him the money and his working it off. He told me if he didn’t have money he couldn’t pay, so after trying to explain it we decided to have him finish up his chores, I’d pay him $7 and he’d give that $7 to Dah as a partial payment for his Star Wars characters. We’ll keep handing the same $7 back and forth until his debt is cleared and then he can put the money in his “money jar”.

The point I am trying hard to make is that Ryan’s and Ashley’s parents have paid them an allowance but they have to do chores to get it and if they want something they have to pay for it themselves or have the money loaned to them and they have to pay it back.

They are training up their children in the way they should go, and they realize the value of money.

Our grandchildren in Texas also work for their allowances, which we deposit into a checking account for which they have the ATM card.

In addition, they tithe their allowance, which brings up another promise from God:

Will a man rob God? Yet ye have robbed me. But ye say, Wherein have we robbed thee? In tithes and offerings.

Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the LORD of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it. Malachi 3:8-10

May we all be as innocent as children.

Are you one of those people who prays only when there is a crisis in your life, and when it’s over you stop praying?

When you pray do you pray for an immediate answer and you want that answer to be yes? And if it isn’t yes do you just throw up your hands on God and get back to your old life?

When you ask for God’s Will to be done do you really mean it or do you mean you want YOUR will to be done? If you don’t get what you want do you walk away from Him again until you have another crisis?

I learned a lot about prayer and waiting upon the Lord, but it took years for me to see the fruits of that prayer.

My parents were not married when I was born. I barely knew my mother and didn’t even know what my father looked like. I was raised by my mother’s aunt and a boarder in the house who had lost his wife.

I had two step-fathers who beat me; one even went so far as to hit me in the face with his fist and throw me across a room.

If it hadn’t been for my aunt and uncle returning to our area on military assignment I honestly don’t know what kind of release I would have had or chosen. By then I was staying with my mother and I would be allowed to stay with my aunt and uncle as often as I could.

When I was 13 years old I got it into my head that if my father knew what was happening he would come to my rescue like a knight in shining armor.

That’s when I started to pray every day that I would meet my biological father on my fourteenth birthday. Birthdays fourteen through sixteen came and went and I quit praying to meet him.

I was saved and I believed I would meet him, but after two years I decided the Lord had other plans for me.

After I was married I found out where my father was and gave him a call. He gave me a calling down. I was 22 years old then.

My mother died suddenly in February 2000 and it became urgent for me to see if my biological father was alive or dead.

At the end of May 2003 I had mailed a check to someone back home in Maine to be used for charity. The check came back stating I had the wrong address.

I checked Yahoo to get the fellow’s telephone number, but I was informed I’d have to pay to get the information. I decided not to do that but then it struck me that I might be able to find my father because the note on the side said if you knew where anyone lived in the past ten years they could locate them for you.

You could pay $25 for an answer in 24 hours or $65 for an answer in an hour. I typed in my father’s name and my home town and struck out.

Then I remembered I had heard he lived in a different town so I put in that town. Voila! His name came up and I chose the one hour option.

When I got the information I called him, told him who I was and was met with the answer I had been waiting 40 years to hear: “I think it’s about time we met, dear.”

He was in the Panhandle of Florida and it just so happened I was on my way to Florida that very week-end. (This was on a Tuesday) All this time he had been three and a half hours from where my aunt and uncle lived and I had been going there every year.

We met at a Waffle House because his wife didn’t want me at her house. She was apparently afraid I wanted money. We hugged and kissed when we first met, and when we left we each studied the other’s face, cupping it in our hands a couple of times.

I thought I’d never see him again and I was satisfied with that, but a month later he needed serious surgery and wanted me to be there.

My Dad died 25 months after we met, but every minute we were together or on the phone during those 25 months it was a love-fest.

He had been a heavy drinker when I was growing up and said I wouldn’t have liked him back then.

I forgot about my prayer, thinking God had said no, when He actually said “Not yet.”

I held my father’s left hand as he drew his last breath. He, too, died suddenly, but our last exchange of words before he went to the rehab hospital on the Tuesday before he died Thursday night were, “I love you, Dad.” “I love you too, Dear.”

Don’t give up on your prayers or on God. He always does what’s best for you when it’s best for you. Just ask me. And my step-mother? She and I are best friends now.

But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings as eagles. They shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.” Isaiah 40:31

My daughter in law just got off the phone with me. The test results from Wednesday have been confirmed, and the two lymph nodes under her arm are so small no treatment is necessary on them.

She will go back in six months unless she has some symptoms for another scan. After 4 clean scans a person is declared in remission from Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma.

This is absolutely nothing short of a miracle and a Physician much greater than any on earth is responsible for this.

I get down on my knees and cry Holy! Holy! Holy!

Heavenly Father, I praise Your Holy Name, for you are God, and there is none other before You or after You.

Amen.

I had to share this news with you now.

Today my daughter in law was in class doing her rotation at a hospital. She received a voice mail from the pathologist who diagnosed her cancer but couldn’t take the message.

He then called the hospital and asked to speak to her. He told her to go into a room, close the door and sit down. She told him she just couldn’t stand to hear more bad news as she had had a body scan of her cancer done yesterday. He commanded her to do as he said and she did.

He then told her of the 15 malignant spots she had in the prior scan, 7 are completely gone, 6 are what they call reactive, meaning swollen glands from something like a sinus infection (she has a sinus infection), and 2 are still cancerous but are under her arm and can be removed by surgery!

She has to go back tomorrow and repeat the scan just to make sure the machine didn’t make a mistake, and we are cautiously optimistic until we get the final word.

None of the lymph nodes got larger, as you have seen some have gone away and the color has not changed in any of them.

People all over the country have been praying for her, including my good friend The Anchoress, Kimsch from Musing Minds and many other bloggers whose names have escaped me at this moment of excitement.

Please keep her in your prayers that this is, indeed, a correct reading of the body scan. I’ll let you know something tomorrow as soon as I know.

Praise God! She asked me if I could believe it and I told her there were people all over the country praying for her and that my prayer has been thanksgiving for healing her body, whether it be directly by God, or by God using doctors.

He’s still in the miracle business. He made our bodies and He can certainly heal them if that’s His will.

First of all, I thank God for the wonderful family He has blessed me with all my life.

Today I want to brag a bit about our daughter in law. She just turned 33, has a recurrence of Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, for which she will undergo treatment with Rituxan (the drug used for former Sen. Fred Thompson) in Houston the middle of May. I’ll be flying to Houston to be with her during that time as she and my son and family live in Irving, TX, and he’s starting a new job the week before she leaves and can’t go with her.

She got not only her Bachelor’s degree when she went to college, but got her Master’s degree at the same time. It seems, however, the business world was not what God had in mind for her.

She was offered a job in the lab at Baylor Hospital in Irving, TX (referred to as “Little Baylor”) and was then offered a job in the pathology lab.

If it hadn’t been for the pathologists in that lab her cancer would have gone undiagnosed. It first manifested itself as thyroid cancer.

She was finally diagnosed with NHL and took treatments of Rituxan last year, but not all of the recommended doses. That was her doctor’s decision.

She enrolled in hystology classes (actually working with the tissue in pathology), and on Friday night at a state convention was named number one for slides she submitted and had to stain by hand as opposed to by machine.

The one who picked the winners after the winnowing process is the Hystology School head at MD Anderson Hospital, where she will be going for her treatment. Until now, no one outside MD Anderson’s program had won this award.

Saturday night she was given the best hystology student in Texas award. It was then that the director from MD Anderson announced to the crowd that someone out there had better grab her up because she is a valuable commodity.

Monday her bosses (the doctors) called her to their office to talk to her about her awards and to introduce her to the new doctor they have hired to replace the man who has had a heart transplant. If he goes back to work at all, it won’t be long hours.

The new doctor had a long conversation with our daughter in law, and she thought it was just a get to know you session. It turns out this doctor is her age, is interested in research and is particularly interested in hemotology and testing drugs on blood. She has a grant from Pfizer right now testing out Drug X to see about curing some sort of ailment a lot of people who have visited Asia get.

She wants our daughter in law to be her assistant in this highly-specialized field. The only ‘problem’ is she would have to attend first year medical school.

The practice will pay for her tuition and pay her salary while she goes to med school for a year.

What a wonderful opportunity she has in front of her! Now if we can just get the NHL in remission for a long time she’ll be able to accomplish what it seems the Lord had destined for her all along.

She could go somewhere else and get higher pay, but she feels a loyalty to these doctors because, as she said, “I owe my life to them.”

The two older doctors treat her as their own child and my grandchildren as their grandchildren.

Congratulations to “L” and let’s see where the Lord takes us next!

Many of us know of autism but it is personal for Kevin Aylward at Wizbang.

The Economics Of Autism
All three of our boys, twins age 5 and a 3-year-old, are autistic. Anecdotally I hear I’m only two children away from establishing some sort of world record, as I was told that the O’Donnell family featured earlier this year on Extreme Makeover Home Edition with 5 out of six children on the autism spectrum is the most on record in a single family in the United States.

If the financial crush of providing treatment to a single autistic child is staggering (estimates are that it will cost over $3 million dollars per child over their lifetime), imagine my dilemma. There’s a variety of services and programs available to autistic children none of which are covered by the vast majority of private health insurers. There are intensive therapies with scientifically proven results available, again not covered by insurance. Do you want to know who our system in the United States has entrusted (or rather mandated) to be responsible “solving” the autism problem?

Well worth the read and let me say Mr. Aylward, thanks for sharing.
Read on.

No matter if it is a mom or dad who becomes a part-time parent due to divorce or separation, this post at The Evangelical Outpost speaks volumes.

The Visiting Father

In 1995 I became a “weekend dad.” I was on recruiting duty for the Marine Corps, on an unforgiving assignment that required working fourteen hour days, six days a week. Sundays I’d make the trek from Olympia, WA up to Everett where my soon-to-be-ex-wife had moved. I’d strap my two-year-old daughter into the car seat and we’d set out on our weekend routine: to the park, if it was sunny and warm; to the playland at McDonald’s, if it was rainy and cold. (Everett is always rainy and always cold.)

My interest was peaked and then there was this:

I want to start with a basic premise: When your first child is born, your life stops being about what you want and starts being about what they need. If you disagree, then you can stop reading now. The rest of what I say will only make sense to those who understand that this is the foundation of fatherhood.

Well, I am not a father but as a mother I certainly appreciate the changes and challenges we face with the birth of a child. With divorce rates in this country skyrocketing and many children being raised in one parent households it has become commonplace to hear “experts” shed their light on “parental responsibility” (a wise person once told me “If you don’t live under the roof, pass no judgment”). The author of this piece is an expert. He is a father.

Complete article here.

Tonto’s and my maternal grandmother would have been 100 today had she lived that long.

I’m going to insert a photo and then tell you about it.

This was a photo taken of my sister and me when I was back home in Maine a couple of years ago. (I’m the one on your left—the short one. ) Please pardon my messy hair. It had been a long day and I had attended a funeral that day.

Our grandmother had had a portrait done of her in Indian costume a couple of years before she died. Tonto took that picture and photo-shopped it into the picture of my sister and me to make it look as though Grammy were looking over us.

I cherish this picture and thank Tonto so much. I also thank you for sitting next to me during her funeral so you could help me in my hour of grief, even though you grieved too.

And to Grammy, you have ten thousand more birthdays multiplied by infinity. I’ll see you at the Eastern Gate.

Even though she doesn’t even know about this blog I want to wish my sister a happy 53rd birthday today.

If I tell her about the blog and she gets mad at me I won’t have any secrets from you.

Today also marks the third anniversary of the last time I was with my father before he died.

It was the most fun day I had ever had with him and I will always cherish it.

My husband saw the orthopedic doctor today and has been released. He was told to take the rest of his anti-biotic pills and to make an appointment to see him if anything changes.

Things look normal and I am sooo thankful we went to the ER as soon as we noticed the problem.

Thank you all for your prayers.