Writer's Block

If you would not be forgotten 

As soon as you are dead and rotten,

Either write things worthy reading,

Or do things worth the writing.

Ben Franklin

A blank page presents itself, untouched, clean...and empty. Easy to feel excited about the possibilities and a writer may be hopeful that something wise or funny would flow from within, covering the page quickly.  Thoughts come and are discarded. 


Friends, colleagues, fans, I daresay, await.  The pressure mounts, the head bows, begging that the influence of one's thoughts would be uplifting, seeking the Supreme Being from whom strength has been found before. Then I realize that once again the problem is that I have been seeking a different answer than the one I have. 


Thus I discover the quandary of the author, one who creates, that one's work may fail to find the essential resounding chord, nevertheless the risk must be taken, and the writing must be written.  


This day is special.  It's February 16, 2012.  
Memories are flowing.  I wonder, is it safe to share them?  Thirty-one years ago I held my first son in my arms for the first time.  In awe, I thought that he was the epitome of perfection and that if it were even possible that another child were ever born, that child could never be as perfect as this one.


Then, astonishingly, other children were born, and I supposed it was possible that their parents were just as profoundly awestricken by their child as I was with mine.  


There was that 9 month old who wasn't sleepy, but Mom wasn't ready to give up his nap time.  So the battle commenced.  "Waaa!!", the sound came from his room.  The pacifier was on the floor, so I handed it to him, and down he flopped in his crib.  Moments later, he cried again, and the pacifier was on the floor.  Again, I handed it to him, and flip, the pacifier was in his mouth, upside down as usual, then flop, down in the crib, closing his eyes, snuggling in.  But Mom wasn't that dumb...so hiding around the corner, I watched through the doorway.  Sure enough, as soon as he thought I was out of sight, he popped up on his feet, and gave his pacifier a fling.  Caught in the act, he looked up and saw me, and a huge grin spread across his face.  Just so he knew who was boss, I was determined to win this battle.  He got a swat, and did take a nap, although I knew who was really winning the battle of nap-time.  Besides that, I was slightly suspicious that I had a 9 month old who was smarter than I was or at least smarter than I thought!


  I remember the two year old in the red baseball cap and red shirt, standing on the tail gate of the pickup, a piece of 2x4 in his hand, confidently pointing.  "It goes there, Dad."  Likely it did.  The same two year old insisted on wearing only jeans...no dress pants on Sundays and I wondered what I was in for when he got to be a teenager!  I remember him steering his yellow and blue plastic car up and down the hall, obeying my command to be quiet, waiting for his baby sister to wake up from her nap so they could play and I remember how she woke up joyfully, smiled at him, and how tender and patient he was with her and with every child, and my heart melts.


He grew into a preteen and the struggles came with kids who were not as kindhearted.  We tried to deal with problems, and we asked our friends for advice.  We followed their suggestions, but nothing seemed to work, and we had to try other things.  Bullies seemed to abound.  He asked us what to do, and did what we said and then he told us that it hadn't helped, and what should he do now.  Finally we decided to wait it out together, and the instigator gave himself away, and then moved out of town. 


He's started several businesses, from his teens onward, and he's been a loyal employee, worked several jobs at a time, and has a great attitude although  the years have produced layer upon layer of amazing difficulties. The man owns his share of my heart and who is to say how much real estate that is. 


I marvel at what he has become,  and marvel more that it sometimes seems I'm the only one who sees it.  Every struggle is felt as if it were my own, every step of overcoming is as if it were mine, every virtue that I admire in him that comes to light through the daily struggles fills my heart with a deeper admiration and thankfulness for this man who has grown from my heart, with me and through my errors.  His talents are vast, and he has certificates for quite a number of them, but it is his character that fills me with wonder.


  He has forgiven me, laughed with me, cried with me, and has been the only one who was my comfort more than once.  


I am thankful to be the mom of this great young man, although he reminds me often that things haven't gone as he planned and tells me that he isn't close to being where he thought he would be, financially, by age 31.  We've been through a lot together.  Wishing him a very Happy Birthday!

The Constitution only gives people the right to 
pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself. 
Ben Franklin

There is no kind of dishonesty into which

 otherwise good people more easily 

and more frequently fall than that 

of defrauding the government. 

Ben Franklin

Red Butte