Barbara V Evers

Images from yesterday roll through my mind on a continuous loop.  I can't press the Escape key and stop them.  All I can do is recall past memories, the ones beyond yesterday, to soften the difficult images in my mind and remind me of the truth and blessings of knowing such a special person. A life well-lived, is a gift to us all. What is your legacy?  Whose lives have you made better? Can you answer these questions? I witnessed one special woman's answer to these in vivid detail yesterday.  In just a few short years, her grace and compassion touched people from many different walks of life.  She extended so much to everyone she knew when, she herself, had very little in worldly gains.  She gave riches beyond compare, and no one will ever say she wasted her days. So, I ask you again: What is your legacy? Whose lives have you made better? If you don't know the answers, then I hope you will begin a journey to discover them.

Last week I did something that many of you will not understand.  I paid a dentist to put braces on my teeth.  I must admit, it took a lot of soul searching and mouth pain to go there again.  These days, you don't end up with a mouth full of chrome, but you do still have a mouth full of hardware. One day into wearing them, I wanted to go back and say, "Take them off!"  Of course, I didn't.  I've already paid for the six months of treatment, so that would be pretty stupid.  Plus, I haven't forgotten why I decided to do this at my age either. Funny, when we're kids, we have little choice.  We get braces because our parents say so.  I was excited when I got them at age 11.  My best friend had them, and I felt like I was joining a special club.  Over the two years I wore those braces, many of my classmates joined that club.  At an age where being different frightened us, braces were NOT different. At my age, wearing braces ARE different. I keep telling

With our announcement of two new grandchildren arriving in June, my thoughts kept returning to my essay, Unexpected , published in Child of My Child:  Poems and Stories for Grandparents .  (Incidentally, the journal appeared regularly in Amazon's Bestsellers list through December.) This week, we learned that one of my daughters might be carrying a baby with Downs Syndrome.  We're a couple of weeks from knowing the test results, but I keep lingering on the title of my essay.  This possibility is unexpected, and even though the circumstances in this situation are far different from the ones in the essay, I'm going to post that essay in this week's blog to remind us of the blessing of a child in all circumstances. Unexpected I hoped that my daughter misread the symptoms, that she wasn’t pregnant. Not because I didn’t want grandchildren, but because of her circumstances. This cherished daughter of mine stumbled onto the wrong path in life in her early twenties and h