Dad, Jessica, and Shadow (the horse that he had to give to someone else after he had an injury) - Not the greatest photo, but the only one I had available on my new computer.
For the longest time my Dad has said that if he ever won the lottery he’d invest the money into an animal sanctuary. I believe him, he practically has one living at his house already. He has Big Boy (who’s had countless health problems), Sandy (who he adopted at the same time we adopted our two dogs), Mama Dog (who shares her time between his and my Aunt Ruby’s house next door), Henry (one of our two dogs that has taken up residence there because of the magnet [my Dad]), Scruffy (being our other dog), and then there’s Sophie. Sophie is something else. She lives a few doors down at another person’s house, but she really loves my Dad. So she scampers on over all the time. She also likes me, and ends up sleeping in my lap every time I go to visit. Along with the dogs, Tigre the cat resides there. And if that were not enough animals he boards two horses (which escaped the property last week that he ended up chasing down to get them to safety) at his farm across the street from the house he lives.
I preface this story talking about my Dad because this story out of CNN this morning about Mrs. Bonnie, reminds of what my Dad would like to have if he had the financial resources to do it. I won’t tell you the story of Mrs. Bonnie, I’ll just tell you that once you read it if you’re an animal lover you might be misty.
Mrs. Bonnie
Photo Credit: CNN
Here’s the story:
Tornado takes ‘Mrs. Bonnie,’ animal lover
For more info on Mrs. Bonnie Visit Flint Hill Kennel
What a sad story :~~(
I’ve been listening to this song a lot lately, I’m definitely the sentimental type so it fits right in with that. I’m not the biggest Brad Paisley fan, but occasionally he really comes out with one that just touches your heart. This one is one of those songs. It’s from Brad’s 5th Gear CD and titled “Letter to Me”.
Watch it, and tell me what you think…
This talk given by President Monson on November 6, 2005 discusses a three step process to a destiny of happiness…I wish I could have heard it years ago at the age of the intended audience. This talk was given at a CES Fireside for Young Adults.
First: Choose Your Friends with Caution
Second: Plan Your Future with Purpose
Third: Frame Your Life with Faith
I liked the following quote contained in the talk:
Dare to be a Mormon;
Dare to stand alone.
Dare to have a purpose firm,
And dare to make it known.8
There stands a family graveyard at the foot of a hill in Canton KY. A town that once welcomed a President, that now doesn’t even have a Post Office nor a dot on new maps. The graveyard is that of the Curling’s. I remember going to that graveyard as a kid, and seeing all the gravestones of old lost relatives like the grandparents I never knew, and Aunts and Uncles that died before I was born. When I was a kid it was just going to see people I’d never met and just imagining who they were and what they were like.
When I was almost 9 in 1983, I remember seeing my Uncle Hubert go there (my Aunt Ruby’s husband). He died after a protracted battle with cancer. It was my first real witness of what went on to put you there.
The past few years of my life though people that I’ve cared the most about have gone there. There was Uncle Tom in 1994, and Aunt Mary Lou in 2005. This year cousin Steve joined them, and on Sunday afternoon Aunt Dorothy will go too, for she died today. She and Uncle Lonnie lived at the top of that hill when I was a child, and I remember going there and all the fun times I spent. The big breakfasts, the green beans and new potatoes, the dinners with Uncle Lonnie saucering his coffee to cool it down. Those days are all but memories now, but good ones. Aunt Dorothy was always special, and someone I cared about. I wish that I’d seen her more in the past few years, but as things go…you can’t go back. I’m glad that the memories that stand out are those of the times spent on that hill, watching Michigan win the NCAA title in basketball while I was on vacation there, romping in the grass, eating down home food, and thinking that it would never end.
With Aunt Dorothy’s passing it leaves only 3 (Aunt Ivy, Aunt Ruby, and my father) of 14 of my Grandparents children (my Dad being the youngest, and me being the youngest grandchild).
Rest in peace Aunt Dorothy for you were loved by many.
I’d have to say that this is my theme song for my kids. I don’t know how you’d describe the love for your children, but for me I’d have to say that I love them so much that it hurts. Sometimes I can sit and look at my 5 yr old sleeping away and just cry because the love I have for him (and his siblings is so intense that it overcomes me). I don’t cry about much in my life, if you ask anyone who knows me they’ll tell you that I’m a very strong person. I handle pain better than most men. I just have that ability. But, this is the one area in my life where I’m about as weepy as they come. It’s good though, because with all the stress that goes on in my life I need an outlet somewhere.
To My Biggest Heroes Ever, My Children:
I just love this story. And what a woman he married to do all she did all those years.
From: CNN:
WARSAW, Poland (Reuters) — A 65-year-old railwayman who fell into a coma following an accident in communist Poland regained consciousness 19 years later to find democracy and a market economy, Polish media reported on Saturday.
Wheelchair-bound Jan Grzebski, whom doctors had given only two or three years to live following his 1988 accident, credited his caring wife Gertruda with his revival.
“It was Gertruda that saved me, and I’ll never forget it,” Grzebski told news channel TVN24.
“For 19 years Mrs Grzebska did the job of an experienced intensive care team, changing her comatose husband’s position every hour to prevent bed-sore infections,” Super Express reported Dr Boguslaw Poniatowski as saying.
“When I went into a coma there was only tea and vinegar in the shops, meat was rationed and huge petrol lines were everywhere,” Grzebski told TVN24, describing his recollections of the communist system’s economic collapse.
“Now I see people on the streets with cell phones and there are so many goods in the shops it makes my head spin.”
Grzebski awoke to find his four children had all married and produced 11 grandchildren during his years in hospital.
He said he vaguely recalled the family gatherings he was taken to while in a coma and his wife and children trying to communicate with him.