I can't believe it's been over a year since I put anything on this blog. However, much has happened to keep me more than busy: I am now one of two Acting Principals at my elementary school, which means I am working 12 months, not just 10. Also, my sisters, brother, and I took turns taking groceries to my parents each weekend once my father started fainting while driving -- we are all VERY thankful no one was ever hurt. And last month, my father died.

He fell and broke his hip. I suppose this is not deadly for most people, even elderly people. But my father had a myriad of health issues: diabetes, an enlarged heart and congestive heart failure, decreased kidney function, ...I don't know what else.

My sister told the cardiac team we were all well aware my father had about 50 needles to thread, all in the right order, if he was going to survive this. He had threaded the needles twice before in 2012 when he suffered two really bad UTIs. This was on top of a split kneecap and a separate incident when he broke his femur. His heart was too weak to have surgery at the time, and it was even weaker when he broke his hip.

I'm sure it sounds like my father was barely able to get around. On the contrary. He had recently bought a new riding lawnmower and hooked his lawn cart to it, put a chair in the back of it along with gardening tools, and drove it to his bushes. He would take the chair out and sit at the bushes, trimming each one. Daddy always said he just couldn't sit and do nothing.

So...while I have been out this week for Spring Break, I thought about my blog. Checking on it, I discovered two things: the aforementioned year's lapse in posts, and the following paragraph about my parents that I included in the "About Me" section. Reading it helped me in my mourning. And I thought it would be a nice way to honor my father by copying and pasting it here.

From "About Me:"
I have always enjoyed living in the South, aside from the humid heat in the summer. I am proud to be Southern. Now, being proud of being Southern does NOT equate with being proud of its history. Right here I must give a huge shoutout to my parents. They grew up in the ‘40s and ‘50s and by the time the Civil Rights Act was passed in 1964 they had been married 9 years and had two children. Their childhood had been different than what mine would be. My parents were astute enough to realize my siblings and I could not be exposed to the same biases and discriminatory practices they had known as normal life, and they worked diligently to keep their learned behaviors and attitudes to themselves. I’ll be honest and say they didn’t always succeed, but they kept trying and eventually their efforts helped them change their own thinking. I think sometimes people like me who didn’t live through the angst, trauma, and tribulation of that time don’t consider the effort it took parents to change their ways so their children wouldn’t grow up with the same twisted opinions. I’m not only thankful for my parents’ diligence, I am also thankful they have been able to see how they influenced my children, who choose their friends based on personal characteristics, not skin color.

Charles Wesley

June 1935 - February 2016

I miss my Daddy so very much, but I rejoice that he is with the Lord in Heaven. This is exactly where Daddy longed to be in the last couple of years he was with us here on Earth.