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Yesterday, I watched one of my children participate in a graduation ceremony for the seventh time in eleven years. If all goes as planned, there will be two more graduation ceremonies. And I only have 3 kids. There have been three high school graduations, two college ceremonies, one graduate school ceremony (Ph.D) and one medical school graduation (M.D.) so far, with our son anticipating college graduation in two years and medical school four years after that.

Am I proud? Oh, yes. My husband and I have been so very blessed with three extraordinary children who have been polite, well-behaved and a joy to be around. Do we claim credit? No. We didn’t take the classes, study for the tests, write the papers or complete the assignments for these degrees. (My kids should all be glad I didn’t do their work for them, considering my limitations in math and science!)

What we tried to do was raise our kids with an appreciation of the value of education, which we stressed over entertainment, popularity or material possessions. We wanted them to have fun and to enjoy their childhoods — but the ultimate goal was always for them to grow into productive and self-supporting adults. I suppose we were stricter than some parents. Maybe too strict, at times, though none of them is currently writing a “Mommy Dearest” tell-all, as far as I know. We’re still friends. We love being together, even though two of them will be living on opposite coasts by the beginning of next month in pursuit of further career training (and I can’t tell you how hard it is to let them go that far away!). I’m glad they both intend to return to Arkansas eventually.

I’ve read that there are four types of parenting. High expectations, low praise. Low expectations, high praise. Low expectations, low praise. High expectations, high praise. We tried to follow the latter model. We expected a lot from our kids. We didn’t demand all As, but we expected them to live up to their potential, and the As followed that expectation. We didn’t pay them for grades, nor did we bribe them to be good students — but we made it clear that it was their lives, their futures that would be affected by their performance in high school, not ours. We would not financially support them as healthy adults, nor would we expect them to support us. If they wanted to be successful and make a decent living, it was up to them to do what was necessary to achieve those goals. They have paid for their own educations through academic scholarships and, in the case of medical school, through student loans. They have attended public schools and colleges throughout their educations, making their goals achievable and affordable.

Our children were fortunate to have some excellent teachers along the way (I talked about that in a previous post). The state of Arkansas ran a fantastic summer program called Academic Enrichment for the Gifted in Summer (AEGIS) that both our girls participated in every summer after sixth grade. Two to three week residential programs, AEGIS introduced them to concepts in math, science, history, arts and computers — as well as being a lot of fun for them and letting them make friends from around the state, some of whom are still friends to this day. It was inspiring for them to meet peers who also valued good grades and academic achievement (they didn’t always get that validation from their own schoolmates). Getting into an AEGIS program was very competitive, so they were encouraged to keep their grades high and their resumes full, because they loved the programs so much that they were considered them rewards for a successful school year. Our son was able to attend only one AEGIS program before the state discontinued AEGIS in 2001 for economic reasons. In my opinion, this decision was a huge mistake — and a great loss for our state.

I don’t take credit for my children’s achievements — sometimes I think they’ve done well despite the mistakes I’ve made as a mom (and there have been plenty). But I hope the love and pride I feel for them, and the gratitude I have for being privileged to know them, will always sustain them as they continue to make their way through life.

Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms reading this. This will be my second Mother’s Day without my mom, and I’ll be thinking of her all that day — as I do every day. I have so many funny stories to share about her. She was a larger-than-life personality with a quirky sense of humor, and an almost rabid loyalty to her family and the company she worked for her entire adult life. An incredibly resilient two-time breast cancer survivor, she was an inspiration to her many, many friends. Her eleven grandchildren called her “Nana,” but she did not define family by blood relationship. Stepchildren, adoptees, even close friends of her grandchildren and great-grandchildren became family to her. They all knew her as Nana — the woman who made lots of cookies and cakes and pies, who always served “goldenrod eggs” on Christmas morning, and who made sure everyone had a gift under her tree. She served as an influence to those three generations, as well as to the many teenagers she supervised in church youth musical groups.

Mother wasn’t a writer, but she was a storyteller. She always had a funny anecdote to tell when we talked on the phone (which was almost every day). She didn’t mind embellishing a little to make the story even funnier — and she never cared when the joke was on herself. I credit her with so much of my own lifelong desire to be a writer.

I’ll spend this Mother’s Day with my mother-in-law, who we are still fortunate to have in our lives, and two of my three children (I’ll definitely be talking to the other that day– and I know she would love to be here if she could). It will be a happy day with family, and a happy day of memories, since my mom would be the last to want anyone to be sad when we think of her. In my heart, I’ll always celebrate that special day with my mother.

My family has always loved animals. When I married my husband, he had a cat named Henry, a white miniature poodle named Sandy, a hamster, Daisy Mae, and three horses, Diablo, Freckles and Eben. I didn’t have a pet at the time, though I’d been owned by several dogs and a couple of cats while growing up. Henry stayed at John’s parents’ house, Sandy moved in with us, Daisy Mae died and was replaced by another hamster, Flip, and we sold the three horses because as newlyweds, we couldn’t really afford to keep them, nor did John have the time needed to care for them properly. That was a tough call for him.

Our first daughter, Courtney, was born three years into our marriage, and she and Sandy became great friends. During the next ten years, we would add another daughter, Kerry, a black lab named Max, an aging cockatiel, Baretta, who had to be given up by his elderly owner, and a son, David. Kids and animals mingled happily through our home.

Sandy lived to be 17 1/2. She died of a heart attack in John’s arms while Courtney (then in the fourth or fifth grade) stood nearby. It was traumatic for both of them, and sad for the whole family because Sandy had been so much a part of our lives for so long. Only a few months later, we lost Max to a tick-borne disease. He was 9. Baretta followed them not long afterward, and for the first time in our family history, we were pet-less. Heartbroken at losing all the pets so close together, my husband and I agreed that we didn’t want any more for a while. With three children now all in school and leading busy lives, and our own careers taking so much time, it just didn’t seem worth the investment of time, money and affection.

A couple of years later, a stray dog appeared in our yard again. Maybe a year old, he had mange (demadectic mange, our vet would later tell us — the expensive kind), was dirty and tick-ridden, and looked to have been hit by a car at some point, because one leg was a little crooked. Courtney — in middle school then — took one look at the smallish, beagle-mix mutt and fell in love. She named him Charlie. She told us that she had been praying for another dog. Well, that pretty much did it. I said to John that if someone we knew had offered us a dog, we could have said no, but since God sent this one, I guess he was now ours.

Several very expensive mange treatments later, Charlie was completely healthy. A sweet-natured, very loving dog, he would have been the perfect pet, except for one flaw. He chased cars. He was one of those dogs who got right at the wheel of the vehicle (he had a special hatred for UPS trucks) and was undoubtedly going to be run over again if he continued. Our property is not fenced, and he was never going to be an in-house dog, so we bought a large pen. He lived in that for a couple of years, being taken out for walks and to play with the kids in the afternoon, but it wasn’t an ideal situation. We tried everything to train him, even the obedience school where our brilliant black lab, Max, had passed with flying colors, but the school owner advised us not to waste our money. Charlie was never going to stop chasing cars.

My father-in-law passed away in October of 1994, and my mother-in-law stayed in their home alone. The obvious solution came to us a few months later; she has a huge, fenced back yard, and an outside laundry room and green room that already had a doggie door installed for a previous pet of hers. Charlie moved to “Mimi’s” house. He loved it there. Lots of yard to run, with trees for shade and squirrels for chasing. A warm, dry room to sleep in (once he mastered the doggie door). Neighbors who slipped him treats through the fence. A doggie friend, Pooter, who lived in the yard behind my mother-in-law’s, and with whom Charlie spent hours running happily up and down the fenceline. He provided company for my mother-in-law, and a little extra security to her home security system, since he barked whenever strangers approached. His new home was perfect for him.

Because he was still “our dog” and we didn’t want all the responsibility to fall on my mother-in-law, someone from our family went by almost every day to visit Charlie, feed and water him, give him his daily seizure meds (he also had epilepsy when he joined us) and monthly heartworm pills. With our daughters grown and pursuing careers, and our son in college, that now-daily chore fell almost exclusively to my husband, though David helped many weekends and during the summer. (After several bad, bone-breaking falls, John’s mother now uses a walker and is somewhat housebound, so he goes by her place every day, anyway, to take care of a few household chores for her). For more than ten years, Charlie has been a fixture at “Mimi’s” house, happy, fat, indulged — and barking safely at cars and UPS trucks from inside a sturdy fence.

Just as the years are catching up with all of us, they began to make their mark on Charlie. His vision and hearing declined, and arthritis slowed his movements. He spent less time running the fence and barking, and more time lying contentedly in the sun. He still enjoyed the vanilla wafers the neighbor gave him in the afternoons, and the sliced weiners in which his pills were smuggled. And he still loved to be petted.

On Monday, April 20, after a year of mostly good days and some bad days, we had to make the very difficult decision to let Charlie go when he was no longer able to stand and walk on his own. John and I took him to our very kind veterinarian. She agreed that the time had come, and John and I told him goodbye with tears in our eyes. We estimated that Charlie was over 17 years old. He’d had a long, adventurous, and happy life.

The hardest part about having pets is that they just don’t live as long as humans. Yes, they’re also expensive and time-consuming and messy — but those drawbacks pale in comparison to the pain of losing them. We still have Izzie, the stray cat I’ve posted about before who adopted us more than ten years ago, and who keeps me company every day while I write. I don’t even want to think about the time when she’ll inevitably leave us.

It’s always tempting to say never again — but then I look at how much pleasure Charlie brought our family during his lifetime, and how lucky Charlie was to have found an extended family to love him and take care of him. One of my writer idols, Dean Koontz, has written about this very topic of animal companions; by protecting ourselves from pain or loss, we can miss out on many pleasures along the way (he’s an animal lover, himself, and lost a beloved golden retriever during recent years). I’m certainly grateful to have Izzie purring at my feet right now as I type this. I’ll try to remember to enjoy every day I spend with her, and I hope there are many more to come.

So, here’s to Charlie, now waiting at the Rainbow Bridge with Sandy and Max and Henry and Baretta and Spooky and Daisy Mae and Flip and Boomer and Kanski and the many other animals that have enriched my and my family’s lives through the years. Thanks for being such good friends to us all.

When I started this blog, I said it would be a positive, quiet place to visit. Notes from the life of a working writer, and a busy wife and mother. Occasionally, I’ve veered into health “nags,” not so odd because all three of my offspring are pursuing careers in medicine and medical research.

This is another one of those nags.

At the beginning of March, my husband went to his doctor for a routine annual physical (at the urging of myself and the kids). Other than a few random aches and pains that come with turning 55 this summer, he had no physical complaints. He stays very active with his woodworking and his chores around our property, in addition to spending an hour or so every day taking care of his aging mother. He doesn’t smoke or drink, though he does love to eat, and could stand to lose maybe twenty pounds.

His blood pressure was somewhat high during the physical. His cholesterol was just a little high (according to arbitrary and somewhat arguable modern standards). His G.P. recommended a stress test because of a family history of heart disease. John saw a cardiologist last Monday for that stress test. On Friday, he was admitted to the local heart hospital where he had a stent put into his left anterior descending artery, which was 80 to 90 percent blocked. He has some blockage elsewhere, but that was the worst place. He will now be on medications and a routine of regular medical check-ups for the rest of his life. Again, there were no noticable symptoms of his condition; this was all discovered during a regular exam.

I’ve posted before about how important it is to have annual physical examinations — pap smears and mammograms for women, PSA screenings for men, colonoscopies for anyone over 50 or with a family history of colon cancer. John’s experience last week — and my own last year, in which a precancerous polyp was found during a routine screening — only reinforce my point. Preventative medicine is so much more effective than trying to treat a condition after the fact.

My daughter, the almost-doctor, quotes that we are very good in America at treating illnesses — but we’re not very good at preventing them. There are a lot of reasons for that. Stress, lack of exercise and poor diets (all of which I’m guilty of, myself). Lack of time (at least in our minds) for doctor visits. Finances. I’m self-employed, as is my husband. We know all about how difficult it is to find affordable insurance, and how frightening it is to face medical expenses if a problem is found during an exam. (Don’t get me started on heartless, profit-obsessed insurance companies who finance their CEOs’ mansions and private jets by doing everything they can to keep from paying benefits to their customers, many of whom struggle just to pay the premiums, and who are afraid to make a claim for fear of their rates going up, their coverage being denied, or being trapped in place because of those convoluted “previously existing condition” clauses — oh, wait. This is a quiet, positive blog, and there goes my own blood pressure!).

Once again, I’m urging everyone to take care of your health. John and I are switching to a more heart-healthy diet with more fresh fruits and vegetables and less sodium, and we’re both committing to taking off a few pounds. We’d both be healthier twenty pounds lighter.  If you smoke, please consider quitting. And make time for your annual physical exams. If you don’t have insurance, there are programs to help you afford them. It takes a little research, or a call to the doctor’s office for advice.

Let’s get better about preventing illnesses so we don’t have to worry quite as much about trying to cure them.

So this week, everyone is talking about that audition video of “47-year-old spinster” Susan Boyle for Britain’s Got Talent. The video has been seen by about 12 gazillion people. If you’re one of the few who has not yet seen it, Google her name and watch the YouTube video right now (I won’t post a link because a) I’m not sure it’s legal and b) I don’t know how).

I’ll wait.

*sound of foot tapping patiently*

Have you seen it now? Good. I have to admit I’ve watched it at least five times, and I’ve yet to get all the way through it without having to wipe tears from my cheeks.

Someone on facebook asked in bewilderment why this video is so popular. I think I can answer that question.

For one thing, that clip is one of the most brilliantly edited five minutes I’ve ever seen. It’s a mini movie, as stirring as any high-school-nerd-makes-good film ever made. It could have been directed by John Hughes in the ’80s.

Think about it: dowdy, but plucky heroine takes the stage. I believe I read that she’s the youngest of a litter of siblings who stayed home to take care of her mother, watching her dreams slip past with the years. What better backstory for a book or movie? She is mocked by everyone around her (the “cool crowd” in the high school films — notice Little Miss Something in the video rolling her eyes and jeering). At the cool table sit the popular jock (Simon), the beautiful blond and another popular guy. They make fun of her, too. She holds her chin up and keeps fighting. There’s an initial stumble — the unfortunate hip roll that only gives the bullies more ammunition to use against her. But then she begins to sing.

The crowd gasps in reaction. They jump to their feet cheering. The jock falls in love with her (look at Simon’s adorable sigh and besotted smile about four minutes into the video). The random popular guy admits he was wrong about her all along. The beautiful blond gives us the moral of the story: We are all too cynical, and we shouldn’t be that way. The plucky little underdog (with whom everyone who has ever been mocked or bullied can identify) is carried off the field – figuratively – with a standing ovation while the absolutely perfectly chosen music swells.

Brilliant.

It’s a tried-and-true formula in fiction. Our hero/heroine succeeds against all odds. Courage and talent are rewarded, cynicism and cruelty are defeated. When it happens in real life, we can’t help but cheer.

We want to believe in happy endings. We want to believe that good things happen to good people. That there’s always a chance our own dreams will come true, if only we have the courage and persistence to pursue them. I met a woman recently who is writing her first book at the age of seventy-five. She’s always dreamed of writing and publishing a romance novel, but life kept interfering. Now she’s taking that chance. Maybe her book will be published, and maybe it won’t. I hope so. But I can’t help but believe her life is better just for the trying, for the dreaming, for the aspiring.

Good on you, Susan Boyle. Enjoy your time in the spotlight. Don’t let the madness overwhelm you. And be grateful for that amazingly beautiful, God-given voice. As the pretty blond judge said, we are all privileged to have heard it.