The day my house burned...

It was my little girl Jessie's 6th birthday party. We had just come back from the park and put all her new things into her bedroom. The kids were in the little pool in the front yard when I heard thunder. I called them in to change to dry clothes and was excited because I was night shift worker... thunderstorms meant we could take a nap without the kids thinking I was just ruining their day for me! I had took my shoes off, and turned the blankets down when there was a knock at the front door. I was surprised to see my old friend, Lynn, who had NEVER been to my house before. Now truthfully, I was excited to see her, but disappointed in my missed opportunity for a nap. We had been talking in the living room for about 20 minutes when lightening boomed down and I just knew it had hit just outside the door.

Within about 3 minutes, my kids started screaming.. and the next thing I knew they were running past us yelling fire. They ran straight out the front door the the neighbors back door screaming for them to call 911. ( here I must tell you.. from the time they were old enough to walk and talk, being a 911 dispatcher and me being a little paranoid, we had practiced fire drills... if you don't do that.. you should! )

When I stepped to the front of the hall I could not believe my eyes... the whole hall was in flames. Fire was every where and sparks were shooting out from the outlets behind my washer and dryer, the breaker box and the hallway light. Fire was literally rolling down the hall way like water being poured on the floor from a bucket. My smoke alarm beeped exactly twice before being melted off the wall. I grabbed the phone and called 911, screamed for Lynn to go make sure the kids did not come back in, and while talking to the 911 operator, dumped the clothes out of a laundry basket and started literally throwing pictures from off the walls into it. It took about 2 minutes from the time I saw the fire in the hallway until it was over the top of my head in the living room. I grabbed one last picture and ran out the front door just as the glass from the windows bedside it exploded all over me.

My children were outside in the neighbors yard terrified and I realised that my car parked rite in front of the doors for unloading birthday presents couldn't be moved. ( I'd left my purse with the keys inside.) I went to my kids, held my daughter while she cried uncontrollably, and my son while he sat silently and watched telling them through fake smile that everything was fine. It just meant we get to get all new things.

Again I have to tell you here.. I was very young. It had taken me years to buy that trailer. We had lived in rat holes and old trailer parks for several years and I had slowly moved my way up. We had only lived there 6 months then. It was the first place my kids had had their own bedrooms, our first washer and dryer, microwave, T.V. and furniture that matched. It was our castle. Watching it go.. and without insurance... was the hardest thing. My Son, 4 at the time and a procrastinator by nature, hadn't finished getting dressed and was in nothing but a t-shirt sitting bare-bottomed in my arms. He started crying too when he realised that his talking Barney was still inside. It took about 8 minutes for everything we owned to be swallowed by fire.

The story is far from over.. but I'll end this here by just saying... we were a pitiful site.. the three of us. Me standing there with a laundry basket full of pictures, and sad birthday girl with no presents left, and a naked bottomed 4 year old. But at that very minute, surrounded by neighbors, firemen, and newspaper people tons strangers... I realised 2 very important things. One.. is that had my friend not of stopped by for the first time ever on a whim... we would have been asleep. And 2... not one of us had a scratch or a singed hair on our head.

Lessons learned..

God works in some very mysterious ways.

He gives us nothing we can't handle.

I am blessed.

I want to be a good man

The only thing evil needs to succeed is for good men to do nothing.

This is one of the quotes that I have tried to live my life by. After all these years I'm not sure who said it first, but I have quoted them a lot. If more people would live their lives with this in mind.. how nice would our world be???

Lesson...
I do not care if the people around me don't agree, or if my standing up and voicing when there is a injustice causes animosity. I will stand up. One voice of compassion, one hand offered in a time of crisis, on person to stand behind you can change the world for someone~

My song for my Dad

I remember 9 years old,
the day Mom went away.
I cried myself to sleep each night,
and watched the phone all day.
One day when she didn't call
I hid beneath some trees,
Daddy came and found me there,
and he got down on his knees.

He just whispered softly
as he held my hand real tight
I know you don't believe me now

but everythings gonna be alright.

We can stand together,

what you could never stand alone.

By yourself you'd be afraid

but together, we are strong.

At 17 I fell in love

And I gave my heart away.

How I cried when he left me

with baby on the way.

I ran into my Daddy's room

and on the edge of his old bed.

He listened as I cried to him,

and to every word I said.

He just whispered softly

as he held my hand real tight.

I know you don't believe me now,

but everythings gonna be alright.

we can stand together,

what you could never stand alone.

By yourself you'd be afraid

But together we are strong.

On my little girl's 6th birthday

with her friends all gathered 'round

lightening came from the sky

and it burnt our home to the ground.

I held on to my children's hands

while locked in his embrace.

Then I felt the tears a fallen

from my Daddy's face.

I just whispered softly,

while I held them all real tight.

Daddy I believe in us,

and everythings gonna be alright.

We can stand together,

what I can never stand alone,

by myself, I'd be afraid,

but with you here I am strong.

I believe in us Dad.. because together we are strong.

Lesson..

What I learned from my Dad I wrote in this song for him a long time ago. Nothing can happen to us together that we can't handle. During all of our trials and tribulations in this life we have clung to each other and in unity there is strength.

A walk through the meadows

This was my first poem ever! I was probably about 13. I remember only showing it to my Gramdma Davis because at the time I thought I was a tortured soul... destined to be a poet and my work would only become famous after my death! ha ha ha! I remember her telling me that I was a deep thinker and I thought that was greatest thing to be told.

Walking through the meadows

reminiscing of the past,

I see the flowers picked in life

have always failed to last.

The blossoms of the marigolds

would hang their heads each day.

And suddenly the daffodils

would wither all away.

Among them all the rose stood out

with all it's sweet perfume.

And even with it's petals soft

soon too will meet it's doom.

Lesson learned...

Even withered flowers leave roots or seeds and bloom again!

I am not destined to be a poet.

I'm still a tortured soul!

The Kiss ( I wrote this when I was about 16 :)

How could description give the kiss

the credit it that it's due?

The kiss that left me trapped with-in,

the thoughts of only you?

How could the morning when I wake,

bring smiles and full content?

How could I cherish dreams of you

and nights in which we've spent?

The sweetest memories can not give

the touch of gentle you.

And still my love I can't forget

that kiss that I once knew.

Lesson learned...

That first sweet kiss should be great enough to last a lifetime!

I'm glad he went first

One of the greatest lessons I have learned came from My Grandma Davis after my Papa had passed away. They had had been married just over 50 years. He had only been gone a month or so when she said the words that literally changed my perspective on love.



My Dad and I had made a habit of going over to my Grandma's house every morning after my Papa's death to have coffee and keep her company. One morning we were sitting at the bar in her kitchen just talking away when her eyes filled with tears and for a minute we all sat in silence. When she spoke again, she said, " You know, I had always hoped that I would be the one to go first." She paused for a minute and then said, "But now I am so glad Daddy did. I wouldn't have wanted him to go through this."

How great is your love that you spend your entire life not wanting or being able to imagine your life without someone? So much so that you would hope that death finds you first because life would be meaningless without them....
My Grandma found one that exceeded that. One that meant that death was a blessing, living without him a burden, and loving him enough that she was glad that she was the one left suffering.

Lesson learned....

I want love like that

We've come a long way baby!

My Grandma is in her 80's. She has never driven a car, ( However assures me that if she still had a mule and cart she could go anywhere she wanted), she's never had a bank account, she has never worked a day in her life for money. She was a stay at home Mom to 2 boys and 4 girls. She worked a garden, raised chickens and pigs, and listened to everything my Granddaddy told her. She married him when she was 14 years old. I knew she was from a different generation when she announced to my aunt and my Mom one day that, "If ever I find out any of my youngun's put some man's old nasty mess in their mouth, they'll never eat off a dish in this house again!" She is a 4'10" ball of spit. Country and sassy. And that was as close to "Sex talk" as I had ever heard from her.
I tell you that story to get to this one...

We, my Mom and me, had taken my Grandma out to eat one day. It is one of my best memories as it was not long before my Mom died and the day had been so great. We had laughed and had such a great time. We had just gotten back on the road to head home when my Mom used the word Vagina. I can't remember what we were talking about before, only that I was driving 62 mph and unprepared.
My Grandma, short legs swinging on the middle section of my van asks... "What's that?" I held my composure as my Mom explained from the passenger seat, it was, you know, your private parts. My Grandma looks straight ahead without batting an eyelash and says.. " Well I don't have none of that on mine, you better get your mess checked out". When my Mom got herself together she again tried to explain it WAS her private parts. Unmoved.. My Grandma says, " I have a pussy. That's what Edward said it was and that's all I've ever had. And he had a pecker. I don't know what you got on yours, but I ain't ever had no vagina on mine. Nasty mess."

Lesson learned....
I really can dirve..
(I was able to pull that speeding van back on the road in record time.)

You can laugh until it hurts.

Sometimes the best memories come in un-expected moments.

And most importantly... times have changed.. I am a modern woman. I have a job, raise my children, drive a car, support us all, and I... I have a vagina!

We really have come a long way!

A true friend

My friend Cindy taught me a valuable lesson some years ago. It was simple.. gross.. and filled with a unique type of love. We were simply standing outside of work one day talking. I had my hands full with my bags and things from work and in the middle of my sentence, she reached up and picked my nose..................

I believe that I just stood there with my mouth agape for several seconds and finally asked her what in Gods name she had just done... a simple reply...

"Your hands are full, you had a bugger, and your my friend."


Lesson learned...

Sometimes, when you love someone, you do unexpected acts of weird kindness.
Love nose no bounds. :)

The phone call that changed my world

It was a normal day for me. I had worked all night dispatching and had come home to crawl into bed and sleep. Normally I would have slept until 3:00 and then spent some time with my kids before doing it all again. It was a little after 11:30 when I woke up with that feeling... the hair on the back of my neck standing up. I thought for a minute that I had heard something.. maybe a loud bang or maybe something had fallen in the living room and it scared me without me remembering hearing it. I ran from my bedroom into the living room to check on my kids and found my daughter and youngest son watching cartoons on the couch looking confused at why I was running through the house in my underware. I was told that nothing fell, no noise had woke me up. I had just sat down on the edge of the chair and was explaining to my daughter that something felt off.. like the world had tilted somehow when the phone rang. It rang one time when I grabbed it and it was a lady named Barbra.


Barbra asked, "Is this Kelly?" My heart was racing and I didn't know why, but when I said yes and she told me that my Zackery had asked her to call and that he needed me to come that there had been an accident, my heart stopped a little. I asked her several times to put him on the phone and she just kept telling me that he couldn't talk but needed me to come.


Now to back up a little, my brother was 19 years old. He was a little different from most 19 year old. He had grown up in a violent home and I think because of that was really close to my Mom. He hardly ever went anywhere that she wasn't tagging along. He was the only grown man that took his mother on dates with him to play doubles in pool that I had ever known. So, when I asked Barbra was my Mom there, I knew she had to be close by... what I heard scared the hell of me. She whispered, "Oh my God, Zackery is your brother?"


I don't remember what I said to the lady except that panic was starting to set in and I was screaming for her to make him talk to me... to put him on the f-ing phone rite then. When I heard his voice, he couldn't hardly talk at all. He just kept saying, "Mama's gone Kelly, there was an accident and Mama's gone"


I pride my self in the fact that after 14 years of dispatching I have learned to be the calm in the storm. At that minute, dispatcher mode clicked in and I started to envision what he was seeing. He became my caller and I became the life link. I pictured that there had been an accident, and that he was mistaken.. there was ALWAYS something we could do to save her. I raised my voice.. told him to stop his crying... he had to listen... we could help her and I was going to tell him what to do. I asked him to tell me what he saw... Is she still in the car? Could he see where she was injured... he needed to go and see if she was breathing and check her pulse.. we were going to do this together.......I was already going through the steps to CPR in my head.


My brother told me, "Daddy shot her. They covered her with a sheet."





Stop... that's what my world and heart did at that moment... stop... no sound... no breath... no air... no feeling... no memory of the next few minutes.. just stopped....





I remember later looking at my children and seeing them scared.. noise came back and I realised that the loud screaming, that sound was me.



Its amazing what things you chose to do when you whole world crumbles. I stopped crying... stopped screaming... tried to calm the kids while getting dressed, called my brother in law to have him go and get my sister from her work in the hospital's emergency room before they brought my mom in there, ( she was 6 months pregnant). I called my ex-husband and asked him to come and comfort the kids... I was in my car driving to my brother and had made arrangements for everyone in less than 10 minutes from that call that had altered the world. It was after that that I realised that I didn't even know where I was driving to.



I called the county dispatch center and found out where my Mom was and then called my rock. My Dad had always been the one who could calm me and make everything better but when I told him I was driving to where my Mama's body was supposed to be he started begging me to pull over and give him time to think. He was all the way in Texas and felt helpless to and lost as of what to do. But I kept driving and listening to what he was trying to tell me to do and trying to focus on the road. This time he couldn't help me. It was the longest drive and the shortest at the same time.



When I got there my brother was in a ball laying in a ditch refusing to get up. He was a 6foot, 200 pound little boy crying in a ball in the bottom of a ditch trying to hide. I was running toward where I saw the sheet. Past the Deputy's car, past the group of people standing there.. I could see the truck on the side of the road and the fire engine to my right hand side. I could see the paramedics and the man who had killed her sitting on the other side. I could see the sheet that had my Mom covered by the back wheel of that old truck. I was only about 20 feet away when I saw one of my own firemen stepping out with his arms open to try and stop me from getting closer, coming toward me. I remember that I thought I was running. I felt like I was moving fast and tried to get around him. I realise now I must have been barley moving because he wasn't moving fast at all and the next thing I knew is was in the bear hug of this huge fireman and he was holding me and telling me not to go there. He was whispering that she was gone and that my friend and co-worker was with her and protecting her dignity and that they had done all they could. There was nothing I could do. They would treat her with the respect that they would treat my Mom but to please not go and look at her. I'm not sure how long I was there with him only that he, Kip, saved me from something I can not imagine I could have handled seeing. Thank God for my Angel in turn out gear.



I had someone take my brother to my sisters house. Everyone tried to convince me to leave. I could not. My Mama lay on the side of the road with a sheet covering her while people walked around taking in the scene where she had took her last breath. It was December 17th, 2004. It was cold and there was nothing I could do to comfort the woman who had spent her life comforting me. I could not leave her there.

My boys, the EMS workers, Firemen, and Law enforcement officers, I had worked with and come to know them all before this, protected me that day. They put a police line for me not to cross, and one behind me to kept away those just wanting to see what happened. They kept away the newspaper lady trying to get her story. They took turns standing there with me to make sure I was okay. They cried with me. They sat with me on the ground when I couldn't stand. Eric, my paramedic friend, stayed with my Mom just like me until the SBI was done with their crime scene. It took over 7 hours. It was he edge of dark when Eric came to me and that the coroner would not be coming. My Mom would be driven by my friends. Cared for as my Mom, not just a body. They pulled the trucks to face my direction and flood lights came on blinding me. I found out later it was to block my vision of her body being picked up off the road. Someone took me home. I don't remember who. And then I started the long process of grieving my Mom and praying that the man who had shot her would be held accountable.

What I learned from this... (it took some time to understand this lesson. It hurt way to much to think back then. )

1. Always let the last thing you say be said with love.

My mom died on Friday Morning. The last thing I said to her was that I loved her. I have no regrets.

2. That children really do bare the sins of their fathers.

My Mom's life was taken... she did not have to live to see the suffering of those effected. My brother is no longer the same man. He is lost to us all. My children lost their Grandparent, and I still need my Mom.

3. There are Heroes and Angels in our lives... drifting in and out...

4. God does not put on your shoulders what you can not handle.

The load is sometimes heavy.. and burden hard... but with his grace all things are possible.

5. Sometimes the guilty get away... and there is NOTHING you can do about it.

6. If he hits you once... DO NOT STAY... No person should ever learn the lessons in life that my mother taught me. No person should ever be left on the side of the road. Run.. Hide... Live

Finding my Mom in the everyday things

Every Day Things
written for my Mom by me.

A tree just a tree,
The wind was just the wind,
The sun was just the sun,
A rainbow just a rainbow.
The Tree in my back yard that I sit beneath late at night,
an old oak with heavy branches,
Brings me comfort.
The way that your arms used to when I was young.
Wrapped around me, holding me when I was scared.
That old oak reminds me of the roots that you planted so long ago.
I sit there now and think of you.
In the summer time,
a breeze will come and blow the hair from my face,
as if there is a secret carried in the wind, just for me.
I remember lullabys, and late night talks,
and sweet secrets whispered in eachothers ear.
I feel wisps of hair blowing,
and I think of you.
In the winter time,
bitter cold.
Christmas without you,
My heart grieves.
And then the sun will come out from behind some cloud,
and the warmth of its rays covers me.
I turn my face toward the sun, close my eyes and see your sweet face.
I know that you are sending me a reminder of your love.
It's warmth fills my heart.
I barely notice the tear on my cheek.
I stand there in the cold Mom,
and I think of you.
And the storms that used to scare me as a child no longer do.
I stare out the window and watch the rain fall.
Sometimes it seems as if Heaven cries or us too.
And then on blessed days,
I'll see a rainbow.
Wonderful colors stretching down
through the dark clouds
from Heaven.
And I remember where you are,
and that at the end of my lifes journey,
I will see you on the other side.
I sit beneath that heavy oak,
and think of you Mom.
I hear your whispers on the breeze.
I hope you hear mine back.
I still dread the winter
because of how you left,
but I can feel your warmth
sent down by the sun now.
And I no longer fear those storms,
i just look for the rainbows
that show me the way to you.
So you see, you are not really gone.
You still exist here with me,
In all the everyday things.

Even the ugly ones........

I have always tried to teach my children manners. I was raised in the south and "Yes Sir and No Mam'" have always been breed into us. I tried a little harder with my own kids. I pushed things that weren't really pushed on me. I made my children always invite the kids that no one else would play with over.. to learn simpathy. We were talking about Nazi's and KKK issues way before they were old enough to understand to teach them that all people are created equal. We donated to the womens shelter and were secret santa's and took in homeless familys. I really and honestly thought that if I could just make my own 3 kids the kind of people to stand up, help out the needy, and voice opinions when everyone around you is wrong, I'd have done my job in this life. So... I learned a lesson of my own one day when my youngest son Andrew was 6. We were leaving a gas station as as normal he open and held the door for me. There was a lady walking towards the door and I gently reminded him to "Mind his manners" and he rolls his eyes a little and says, " I know Mom.. Hold the door for ladies." I'm not going to lie, I was super proud of him. Now.. this particular lady was unkept, kinda large, and dressed rather poor. As we walked away, my beautful son looks up at me with innocent big blue eyes, and asks.. "Mom, even the ugly ones?"

Son.. step on my toes.. please.......

I learned something from my Grandma years ago. Something that at the time I didn't realise the impact of. My oldest son was a little boy. We were dressed to go to town and he was in his normal mischivous mood. On the way to the car he jumped both feet first rite into the mud puddle in the drive way I had just told him to walk around. When I started fussing at him for getting mud all over him.. my Grandma started laughing and said... "Awl.. let him. Mud puddles are too much fun for a little one to walk by. They are only little for a short while" And then while looking rite into my still not so happy face she told me, "Enjoy them now while they are stepping on your toes, cause one day they'll step on your heart." I've learned now.. as that same little boy has almost reach adulthood how very rite she was. My heart wishes for the days of stepped on toes.