The Tiny Pine

 My thankfulness today is about forgiveness.   I have had my battles with it over the years,  first with Mama and Daddy and then later in marriage.

It is amazing how many of us carry the original reason for a person needing forgiveness around with us,  in our daily lives. 

I was given this lesson a few years ago and want to share it with all of you because it is within our power,  to free ourselves....

The Tiny Pine .. Sept 09

 It was a crisp day with the sun shining just the way I like it, when I started on my early morning walk. The  long dirt driveway that I walk is just the size of one automobile  and filled on both sides overflowing,  with all types of trees and plants. The palms are just amazing. They always sway in the wind like large fans and the pines are so tall that you have to really look up to see the tip tops. 

I was walking along dodging the holes in the road, when I saw the tiniest pine tree on the side of the road. It was encased in vines and being held down to the ground. It had already turned brown on the side away from the sun, and I could see that it would not last long in that condition. 

I started pulling the vines away and it was amazing the transformation in that tiny tree. It immediately sprang up and stretched out its pine needles to the sun,  It was still bent some but it had just been given it a new chance at life. 

That hit me like a thunderbolt, that we live our lives ensconced in vines and we need to free ourselves if we are going to live fully and be nurtured by the people around us. 

When we carry anger of a person"s transgression against us around, it is like those vines pulling us away from all that we can be. It keeps us from accepting the warmth of the light to nourish and feed us. 

It took me so many years to forgive my Mama and Daddy and all of that took a toll on me and my body. When I learned to ask forgiveness for my part in any wrong doing and to give forgiveness to those even if they don't ask,  I started to heal. 

Forgiveness is not for the other person. It is for us. We don't have to pal around with the person or be best friends, but we don't have to carry them into our tomorrow either because that gives them some control over our present. 

I forgave my Mother for leaving. I was able to see it through her eyes and know that she did the best that she could. 

I forgave my Daddy for drinking and being less a man than he could have been. I was able to see his struggle to take care of his children and provide for 6 children alone.

But the big one is that I forgave myself for putting my needs before my children. I could see myself,  the child,  wanting to be loved at all costs. It was human and I was human and that was ok. 

 

My sincere wish is that all of us can rid ourselves of those clinging vines that suck the life out of us. That way we can live fully,  without beating ourselves up because we are human. 

I am so grateful that I was given this lesson of forgiveness because it freed me,  just like that tiny tree. 

I love you all so much and pray that you will be able to forgive others and yourself, just as we are forgiven,   so that your heart and mind are free.... Love and light, Kimmee

(Google images) 

Angels Unaware

 A friend of mine shared her experience with us recently about Angels.  She had a real life Angel experience and I have too. Today I am going to share how my Angel protected me against the elements. 

I used to work as a 3-11 pm Supervisor at The St Josephs Nursing Home.  The shift ended at 11 PM but I was never out on time. I needed to make sure that the night was running smoothly before I left and sometimes it was 1  AM before I left to go home. Any other time it would be about a half hour or so to get home in winter, if the roads weren't icy and or snowing hard.  

This particular night it was really cold, 10 above zero and I had made it to Heuvelton, 5 miles from home when my car started acting like the entire electrical system was going out. The lights on the dash panel kept flashing  on and off and and I thought for sure it was going to die right on the spot, but I gave it some gas and sped through the village praying that I would make it home.  I crested the hill and coasted  to my turn off on East road and the car decided to give up the ghost,  just  as I turned onto my road. 

It was 1:30 in the morning on a weeknight,  and there were no streetlamps on my road. It was pitch black , except for a tiny sliver of a moon and it was brutally cold. I knew that I could not walk the 4 miles home in my thin Nursing uniform, even though I had a coat. I would surely freeze to death and I was kicking myself for not putting a blanket in the trunk, as I had said I would.   

Hindsight is always 20/20 and  I thought this might be the last mistake I would make in this inhospitable climate.  I was really wishing I had a cell phone like my friend Janice,  but I didn't.   It would not have done me any good to try to walk the mile back into the village because when the village closed up, it closed up.  No 24 hour supermarkets, no Walmarts nor coffee shops. 

The prayer had started the minute my light panel had begun flickering and it continued for the next 10 minutes. No one came by and why would they? It was 2 o'clock in the morning and people were snug in their warm beds.  

I sat in my car for a bit, then decided that I may as well walk out to the main street and pray that someone would be driving by this  early in the morning,  but not expecting anything.  I walked out and saw the house at the top of the hill but I hated to wake anyone up. I was kind of surprised that I wasn't colder than I was and was really starting to think I could walk home.

 I walked back to my car and just as I did, I saw lights coming down my road.  I was shocked and the truck stopped when they saw me.  It was a lady and she was on her way to work that morning and she had a cell phone. I called my husband and he said he would be right there. She stayed there with me and wanted me to get inside so I could warm up, but I declined.  Something else was warming me up on the inside and I was barely cold. 

We did not know each other but she lived at the other end of our road and we had already introduced ourselves when she said,  " I don't normally go into work until 4,  but I was awake and could not sleep, so decided to go on in."  I felt a flood of warmth on my body when she said that.  I knew that it was no accident that she had come to help me.  She wanted to wait with me but I told her that my husband was only 5 minutes down the road and she left me with a thermos of coffee and went on her way.  

Before her lights were gone, I saw another car coming down the main street. This was crazy. Cars were not out at this time of night. This was an elderly man and woman and they were coming from the hospital. His wife had not felt well earlier and they had gone to the Dr and were on their way back home.  They stopped and asked , "could we take you home?" and I replied, " no, my husbands coming and he will be here any minute." They seemed reluctant to leave me also but I said to his wife that she better go on home and get to bed where it is warm. They insisted on leaving me a blanket and they went on down the road.  

I watched their lights as they drove and before their lights disappeared, I could hear my husbands Van coming.  

He arrived and we had decided to push the car off the road so no one would hit it in the dark, just in case anyone came by and then something hit me to try the car again so I did and it started, just barely.  The lights would not come on but it was running and  my husband jumped in his van and turned it around to provide light for me to see the road. I followed closely behind him and kept saying in my mind, a few more feet, a few more feet.  We passed the forest, the most beautiful part of the drive where the trees were laden with white snow, we turned the corners and the few houses and trailers came into view. Ours was the 9th house on the road but it was 4 miles in.    With each 100 feet that we drove, I just knew my car was going to die but it didn't, not until I pulled into my driveway. 

That was the longest half hour I had spent in some time and I had spent it in the elements and I was not overly cold.  

No one can tell me that God did not send that lady to work early, or that elderly couple to give me a blanket or that my husband would hear the phone or  that his hand was not in my making it home,  without lights.

I had so much to be thankful for that night and many times since.  It could have gone so differently and someone may have discovered me the next morning 5 or 6 hours later, frozen in my car, but not that night...... 

I love each of you very much and pray that when you need an Angel, one will appear... Love always, Kimmee

Thankfulness For My Mom

 Today's thankful post is about my Mother. I don't talk about her a lot and I haven't thanked her as much as I should. I want to thank her today because she gave life to me. 

My Mom was a girl of 13 the first time she caught my Dad's 25 year old eyes. I think of that today and I shudder but this was 1937 and people thought differently about courtship and marriage. I know that they courted for 3 years and he wrote her some very poignant letters that my sister has in her possession.

 There is no denying that he fell in love with her. I don't know how she felt about him, but he was tall and good looking so she may have been dazzled by him, thinking that would bring a better life. 

At age 16,on a sunny day in June of 1940, they married. The next year the children started to come and they did not stop until 1955 when there were 6 of us. 

In my very young years, my parents became legally separated and the children were left with Daddy. This was the first time I felt abandonment, and it happened again and again as she would come and go a few times a year. Of course at that age I did not understand but as I grew up, I understood perfectly. She did the only thing that she could do, in that day.

There were few opportunities for Women. Independently owning a home or car was not widely done. If you married, every thing was in your husbands' name and when she left, it was with very little. ( I think of that as very brave today) 

There were some happy memories of her coming when I was really small. I can still see her making her mouth watering sugar cookies in the old burl flour bowl. She mixed everything by hand without a recipe and them dropped them on the cookie sheet to cook. She put sugar on them about half way through the baking process and they were literally melt in your mouth good. I tried for years to duplicate them but it took her granddaughter, my oldest, to do that. The secret turned out to be Lemon and Vanilla flavoring in them.. LOL. My daughter tried several combinations until she came upon the right one, but she can make those cookies and they take me back to 5 years old in one bite:-) 

She made me flour sack dresses when I was small and she made some pretty awesome bread pudding.  

She couldn't swim a lick but she could float on her back like a champ. When we would go to Munson, we would be swimming and she would lie on her back with her toes sticking out of the water and float all over the lake. I used to watch her and try to emulate it, but I could not. My toes would sink or I would have to paddle to keep afloat, but not her. She could cross her arms and legs if she wanted and float all day.

She loved country music and if she was home, the record player was aplayin. Hank Williams, Hank Snow, Hank Locklin.. Hmmmm.. She sure liked Hanks. There were also the McReynolds boys, Lester Flat and Earl Scruggs, Faron Young, Ernest Tubb, and the deep baritone of Tennessee Ernie Ford singing " You load sixteen tons and what do you get?" So many great singers of that day that I can not say them all. She loved hearing them sing and I do too. 

She loved Church too. Not many remember that, but she loved the Lord. She took us to Ebenezer when we were little and I will always be grateful for that. It gave me a foundation of knowing that there is something greater than me. 

Now I will get to the thankful part. I harbored resentment and an unforgiving heart toward my Mother for many years, because I had no understanding as a child of why I could not be with her. I know now that she left us with Daddy, because she knew we would have a home and food and schooling. With her vagabond existence, it would have been impossible to provide for us. 

That is why I have the greatest empathy for someone giving up a child. If you have a heart, that is not done lightly. It is done because you love that child more than you do yourself. And that means that she loved us, more than she loved herself. When I realized that, forgiveness was in my heart for her and for me harboring, any less than stellar, thoughts about what my life had been. 

I can tell you that forgiveness is, bar none, the greatest gift that you can give yourself. When you forgive, it releases it from your heart and mind and it flies away from you, leaving you free of its power. 

So, today I thank my Mom, Blanch Beatrice Morris, for giving me some of her sweet spirit. For cooking when she was home, for letting me do her hair, for coming back to see us every now and again and for trying to be a good Mom. 

If you have your Mom, forgive her and thank her for giving life to you. If you don't, pray your thanks to her. 

All my love, Kimmee

ps.. I have a few material things that I cherish from my Mom. One is a tapestry of the Last Supper. I don't have it out at present to photograph for you. I do have my prized dish from her that my younger sister gave me, and I have her cast iron Skillet that my older sister gave me. I remember as a child her taking it out into the sand to clean it. I don't think soap ever touched her beloved skillet and it doesn't stick today, cause I take care of it. Thank you Mom and my Sisters....

My Brother Ernest

 November 13, 2014

I am honoring my brother this TBT. He is gone now for a few years but he left an indelible dent on my spirit. I wrote this for him when he passed. 

 So many memories of our childhood have found their way to my consciousness. He was 3 years older than me and taught me so many things, like how to make biscuits, how to do the perfect swan dive, (which I could never perfect) , how to ride a bike, then later a motorcycle.

 It is ironic that he loved motorcycles so, and that was what began his demise. I remember when he had his accident and was in a coma for three months, his body broken, his mind gone. My sister and I alternated nights at the hospital so that he would not be alone, if he woke up. He said his first words to me when he came out of the coma. George Wallace was making a run for the presidency and I looked at Ernest and said, "Do you think George Wallace will ever be president?" and he said his first word.. "No".. I repeated the question and he answered again. I ran to get the nurses, as we did not know if he would ever come out of the coma, but he did.

 He over came so much. He was dead on the side of the road when they found him, and the EMT revived him. I am ashamed to say that I have asked God why many times, when his life seemed such a struggle, and then it became clear to me a few days ago.

 My brother was a gift to the world.

In the 37 years since he had his accident, I never saw him any other way than with a smile on his face. When they cut off first one leg and then the other developed problems,  he kept smiling. When he would be sick, he would reassure us that he would be alright. We should have been reassuring him that he would be alright. When he got the first bed sore and had to go to the hospital, he did not complain of pain, he was laughing. When he had to go back for another, he still smiled.

 How can one smile through adversity like that. I think he had to know that to complain would do no good. It would not change his circumstance. He would wake up the next day to the exact same day with the only control that he had, himself, and the way he impacted the world.

 I want to remember the strength that my brother showed the next time I think I am going to complain about my circumstances which mean nothing in the big picture.

 So today, one of gods angels is laid to rest and I cry , but with tears of joy that I knew him and loved him.. Fly away, big brother, be a whole man again, in mind and body, and know that you touched my life in a way that I will never forget... Thank you for being my brother and for letting me be your little sister... Love, Kimmee 

ps.. Just in case you all think he was a saint, this is the same brother that used to stack truck tires around me so that I could not get out for hours.lol. I know that he needed to do this when I would get in his hair. 

He also taught me to make biscuits but I realized later that it was so that he would no longer have to get up at 4 am to make them for Daddy. That fell to me at the age of 8. I laugh at all the memories now and am so thankful to have them:-)

4/10/1950---3/09/2008

Longest Covered Bridge in The US

November 13, 2020

We have had so many wonderful experiences here in Northeast Alabama. These gently rolling hills and mountains were such a surprise to me and I just love it. 

Yesterday we saw the longest covered bridge in the US at 270 feet long and Wendi and I walked all the way across it. Casey did not want to walk as you could see through the cracks of the wood at the water and ground below but we loved it. The smell of 100 year old wood is so amazing. The swirling clear spring below was just so beautiful. The red Mill is still there reminding us of days long past. 

We have less than a week left here in Arley, Al and I can say that this is a beautiful part of the world and I wish you all could see it with us. 

Jenny went to the waterfall, the only one of us to traverse over the rocks to see it and I was so proud of her for making it.

Some of us are afraid right now. Covid has paralyzed life as we once knew it but I hope that you will find a way to get outside in nature. It's so healing and calming to my spirit and I know that it will calm you too. 

I love y'all with all my heart and am taking each of you with me to see the world we live in. A short week and we will be going toward Texas. I'm enjoying each new day and being with my family while exploring this great country we live in. Yes, a lot of things are wrong about it but yes, a lot of things are right about it . Seek the things that calm you, bring you some sense of peace and nurture all that is good inside each of us. I'm doing just that as we travel and hope that you will too. I love you. Always, Kimmee.

My DNA cousin Benjamin Franklin

 I've been wondering how Benjamin Franklin and I are kin ever since my DNA was done a few years ago and today with the new app that ancestry calls "We're Related" ,  I found out. 

I am over joyed to know the how of it. 

It is through my paternal Peacock/ Pearson line and we are 5th cousins 7 x removed.... 

Call me tickled!!! 

💜

I have known for sometime through my DNA but I did not know how,  until today.. This is the lineage.. Benjamin Franklin  5th cousin 7 x removed through the Peacock/Pearson lines

Gloria Peacock Kimmel

Elmore Lee Peacock

Lucious LeeRoy Peacock

James Hardy Peacock 

Levi Peacock Jr

Jemima Pearson.. Mother of Levi Jr

Jonathan Pearson

Peter Pearson

Christopher Pearson

Elizabeth Wilson ... Mother of Christopher Pearson

Peter Wilson

Anne Sherman.. Mother of Peter Wilson

Susan Renee Lawrence.. Mother of Anne Sherman

John Lawrence... common Ancestor of myself and Benjamin Franklin.. John Lawrence is my 12th great Grandfather and he is Benjamin Franklin's 5th Great Grandfather. I already had him in my tree. I just did not realize that this was the connection I was seeking.. So thankful to know how..

A Trip to Fairplay SC and The Bear

 Nov 5th, 2020

Hi dear friends, we are on a 3 day trek to Alabama from Northern Virginia and tonight we stopped in Fairplay, SC. How gorgeous it is here and what a great find in this beautiful part of our country. 

Jenny was making us a campfire so we could sit and watch the sunset and this fella  was in the basket of wood left behind. It was there to be put in the fire but when Jenny saw it and showed it to me, we knew this was never going to make the woodpile. 

I love the bear and wish I had Patrice Mayberry's skill to make him into a standing bear. Since I don't,  he will be my mascot and now will travel everywhere we go. 

I hope that everyone is doing alright. I know times seem uncertain right now but be reassured that tomorrow the light will come. We will wake up, take a few deep breaths and do what Americans have been doing for generations, say thanks for a brand new day full of possibilities.. 

I love you all and pray that the rest of your day is blessed. Deep breathe and relax. We got this.  Always, kimmee