“Poets do not go mad; but chess-players do.
Mathematicians go mad, and cashiers; but creative artists very seldom.
I am not, as will be seen, in any sense attacking logic:
I only say that this danger does lie in logic, not in imagination.”
G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy
(a vintage 1960 Humpty Dumpty stuffed animal via ebay)
When I was growing up, rather than actually curse, my dad would always say “spit”
or “I’m so mad I could spit”
As a youngster, I certainly didn’t know spit was a substitute for a “bad” word and
I always wondered how mad one needed to be in order to spit.
And despite being a tomboy, I was too lady-like to ever spit!
But all these years later, I get it.
And like my dad, I’m so mad right now, I could spit”!!!
You see that picture of a vintage 1960 Humpty Dumpty?
Well, I had one just like it.
Actually, I had several– as my Humpties were each loved to death.
The last one consisted of just the beige insert, the Humpty exterior had long since
worn away…Humpty was with me from the time my parents brought me
home from the adoption agency to the time I got married.
There may have been two total as my mom did her best sowing and patching
the worn love.
My last Humpty has lived in a box at the top of the closest now for nearly 40 years—
add 20 more to his age, and we have an antique beige lump in a box.
But that beige lump absorbed more tears over the years and sadly a few angry
pulls and punches than anything or anyone ever close to me.
He was my constant companion and dearest confidant.
The Mayor is becoming a lot like me in that regard.
She has about 4 or 5 who are bed partners, soul soothers, and best friends.
Here we see a not so gentile sleeper with two stalwart sleeping buddies…
Bobobo (aka Vamparina) and Sky from Paw Patrol–missing is BeBe
(a tiny rabbit rattle, Big Bebe, a stuffed fawn along with Chase the Police Dog
from Paw Patrol.
If you aren’t familiar with Paw Patrol—it’s a cartoon on Nick Jr.
A cartoon that The Mayor and Sherrif both love.
According to its on-line information page, the show is about: A group of six rescue dogs, led by a tech-savvy boy named Ryder,
has adventures in “PAW Patrol.”
The heroic pups, who believe “no job is too big, no pup is too small,”
work together to protect the community.
Among the members of the group are firedog Marshall, police pup Chase,
and fearless Skye.
All of the animals have special skills, gadgets, and vehicles that help them
on their rescue missions.
Whether rescuing a kitten or saving a train from a rockslide,
the PAW Patrol is always up for the challenge while also making sure
there’s time for a game or a laugh.
You can see Sky is sleeping by the Mayor’s side, but Chase is her favorite…
a police dog German Shepherd pup.
Here we see the day Chase came home to the Mayor and Sherrif from the store:
So I now want to know why a young child’s cartoon show, that first aired in 2013, has
now come under scrutiny and into the crosshairs of the cancel culture??!!
Could it be that there is a “police” dog on the show???
There is a builder safety dog, a fireman dog, a water safety dog, an air safety dog
a road safety dog and of course the police dog.
Yet according to an article on Fox News, here is a quote from a twitter troll
regarding the police character dog on this tiny tot cartoon:
“Euthanize the police dog,” one user said.
Others wrote “defund the paw patrol” and “All dogs go to heaven,
except the class traitors in the Paw Patrol.”
Other’s noted “As the protests against racist police violence enter their third week,
the charges are mounting against fictional cops, too.
Even big-hearted cartoon police dogs —
or maybe especially big-hearted cartoon police dogs —
are on notice,” Amanda Hess wrote.
“The effort to publicize police brutality also means banishing
the good-cop archetype, which reigns on both television and in viral videos
of the protests themselves,” she continued.
“‘Paw Patrol’ seems harmless enough, and that’s the point:
The movement rests on understanding that cops do plenty of harm.”
The rumor circling on-line is that that Nickeloden has canceled the show
but is now denying such actions.
But the mere fact that idiotic adults are out there attacking a cute cartoon geared
toward our smallest members of our community of humankind has left me oh so mad.
So mad that I could spit!
I would think that we as a communtiy would want our young children to see our first
responders being portrayed in positive roles.
Roles of helpers, rescuers, and those who help us when bad things happen.
We want our kids to trust them if ever the need should arise that they must
step in when we can’t help our kids.
For crying outloud—when will enough be enough???
Maybe when they burn down Portland?
Maybe when our Democracy is traded in for pure anarchy.
Maybe when we all die during a pandemic
Maybe when Jesus comes back.
Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous.
Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed,
for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”
Joshua 1:9
“There are only two ways to live your life.
One is as though nothing is a miracle.
The other is as though everything is a miracle.”
Albert Einstein
(DNA test kit from 23 and Me)
To spit or not to spit, that is the question…
Or actually, it was my question.
I initially had a different post I wanted to offer today, but I caught a story on the news the
other evening that preempted my plan.
About a week or so ago I wrote a couple of posts referencing the Governor of Virginia,
Ralph Northam’s notion that legislation should be created allowing third-term abortions.
I won’t rehash all of that with you but if you’re interested, you can find those links here:
And yet the irony in this is that the Governor’s potential questionable “racist” past has now
all but smothered his comments and views on third term abortion.
An observation that leaves me more than troubled with our culture’s priorities.
And whereas the Governor has since backed off from his initial wording used during
that fateful interview…it matters not…because more and more states are showing a keen
interest in such an “allowance.”
So lets back up a tad…
I am adopted.
Many of you already know this little fact.
I’ve written about it and shared tales about such since the inception of this little
blog of mine…
so this post is not so much about that…and yet partially…it actually is.
About two weeks back, a fellow blogger shared with me the fact that she had been adopted
as a baby.
She is a wife and mother as well as a wise Christian warrior here in blogville.
I shared with her the fact that I was adopted as well.
She continued her tale…
She shared the fact that she had found her birth mother.
It was somewhat by happenstance.
Her young sons were showing a deep interest in wanting to learn their family’s genealogy…
but my friend knew that her “tree” was rather incomplete.
She didn’t know her “true” heritage…
Her tree, like mine, was dormant.
So she really had nothing she could concretely share with her boys.
Let alone the importance of knowing their family’s true medical history.
And so my friend explained that she bought one of those DNA kits that are so popular
right now.
She decided it was high time to learn about her “real” roots.
Once receiving her results, alerts began coming her way.
The alerts were from folks “out there” who had some sort of genetic connection with her…
as in being related.
Alerts that one may opt to connect with or not.
My friend was now piecing her puzzle together slowly one piece at a time.
And one of those alerts, it turned out, was a person who my friend had the gut feeling
was actually her birth mom.
Through correspondence, her birth mother shared that she had always prayed for her
unknown daughter…praying that she would be raised up as a Christian…
of which she was.
A prayer answered and eventually Divinely revealed.
I told my friend that I’d email soon as I wanted to talk further about all of this…
I was curious because of my own questions.
But life, that being my current life, being what it is, we’ve not had the opportunity
to talk further.
But since our conversation, thoughts nagged and tugged at my brain.
I had never once considered my adopted parents anything other than my parents.
And yet, I’ve always had those nagging holes in my life’s story.
There has always been a feeling of disconnect with my “family”
Their heritage is truthfully not my heritage.
Their roots are not my original roots.
Their health history is by no means my health history.
Yet as long as my Dad was alive, I vowed I’d never search.
I feared, given our dysfunctional family mess with my brother who had
also been adopted, it would break my dad’s heart thinking he might lose me after having
lost my brother due to his angst, dysfunction, and inability to deal with his adoption…
all of which lead to family violence, my mother’s death, and his eventual suicide.
(I’ve written many a post regarding my troubled childhood in our
very dysfunctional family so now is not the time for all of that)
So along with the holes to my past, questions have always loomed large regarding
my health and that of my son’s and now that of my grandchildren…
I do know that my birth mother hid her pregnancy, moving to a city far removed
from family and friends.
She sought no prenatal care despite being a nurse.
She delivered her baby (me), a bit prematurely, and shortly following the delivery,
walked out of the hospital.
Later, the young adopted me struggled academically throughout school.
Those who read my posts often note my typos and mild dyslexia with certain words.
I was never diagnosed but I always knew something just wasn’t right.
Yet I persevered, I worked hard and yet I never felt any sort of peace of success
or accomplishment.
I imagine my son’s lifelong struggles with ADD, a Learning Disability, as well as Dyslexia,
are rooted somewhere in my own unknown genetic make-up.
He was diagnosed in both Kindergarten and 1st grade—early enough for us to seek help—
allowing him to work toward success.
He worked, struggled and persevered— doing more with his life now by age 30 than
many of his teachers ever imagined he would or could.
There have been medical struggles as well for both of us.
Discoveries that have come mostly by happenstance.
My thyroid disorder—Hashimoto’s Disease…which was discovered by routine bloodwork.
Migraines since I was 12.
IBS, as well, since I was 12, that was pegged as simply a “nervous” stomach.
Despite my realizing it, I even struggled with infertility.
We had our son 5 years into our marriage yet we never had another child…
it was something that just never happened.
Due to health issues, I had to have a hysterectomy at age 35—
doctors told me then that they didn’t know how we had actually ever conceived our son
let alone the likelihood that we never would have been able to conceive again.
It was after another routine blood test that I was recently diagnosed as a
hemochromatosis carrier—
a carrier of Hemochromatosis Metabolic Disorder who has bouts with Reynaud’s Syndrome.
Something passed on to my son and possibly
my grandchildren.
All of which points to some sort of autoimmune issues as the list of discoveries
continues to grow.
Knowledge is a powerful tool—especially when dealing with one’s medical history.
A tool I want for my son and his children…a tool I’ve never had.
So as my husband and I both worry about what we don’t know…
what we don’t know that could affect our son and his health and now the health of his
children, our grandchildren…I therefore finally made my decision.
Rather than reaching out to the Georgia Adoption Reunion Registry,
paying a fee for some sort of search with a potential meeting, or perhaps worse,
a denial of any sort of meeting…should anyone still be living…
I opted for a more broad source of information…albeit actually a bit detached…
A benign pie chart of heritage and a litany of genetic health information.
I ordered the tests from both 23 and Me as well as Ancestry.
I spit in the collection tubes, sealed everything up and shipped them off.
And so now we wait.
In the meantime, upon learning of my offering up a little spit, aka DNA,
my son was actually more reserved rather than excited.
“Mother you have just put the family’s DNA out there for every Governmental
agency to access…”
However, my word to him has been… stay on the up and up and it’s all good.
And I suspect once we learn our true course of both past and future…
he’ll be a bit more curious.
But what does my adoption issues have to do with my worries over third term abortions
and of those who are thinking that such actions would be a good choice to offer…
It is the very fact that I was not aborted.
It also runs counter to my Christian faith.
Despite my biological mother’s obvious angst and crushing strain that she was
to then live with…
she still opted to give me life…despite this heavy burden carried alone.
She afforded me the gift of life…the gift of loving and being loved…
The eventual gift of my precious granddaughter and soon-to-be grandson.
Relationships and connections that may never have been…
And for that, I am grateful.
So the other evening while I was doing the dishes I heard Fox New Host Martha McCallum
talking about the latest state who was showing interest over third term abortions.
I put down the dishes, turned off the water at the sink, grabbed a dishtowel while
drying my hands as I raced into the den to hear her story.
She was interviewing a young man named Daniel Ritchie.
Ritchie was born without arms and has become an outspoken opponent to the
idea of abortion, especially third-term abortions.
His was a birth of extreme alarm.
He was delivered without arms and without actual vital signs.
It appeared he would not probably survive and since there was such deformity,
the doctors began explaining to his parents that to just let him “go” would be best.
But his parents, to the surprise of doctors, did not think such a decision was wise nor right and
thus encouraged the doctors to do their best to revive their son—of which they did.
Man might think he knows what is best based on clinical observations and deductions…
however, none of us can tell the future with any real certainty.
Our hypotheses of life can be, more or less, whittled down to nothing more than a 50 50 crapshoot.
Ritchie shared with Martha his challenges growing up learning to do everything with
his feet rather than what others were doing with their hands and arms.
But Daniel told Martha that it was at age 15, that pivotal age in adolescents,
that the real turning point in his life arrived…he accepted Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior.
The choice to live with bitterness over a life of challenge, difficulty, stares, and rejection
or the choice to choose something bigger and greater than self…to seek a life even greater
then what he currently knew.
Daniel came to understand that God had a plan…
a bigger plan than he could have ever imagined.
A plan that would never have been had his parents opted to follow the doctor’s
suggestion in that delivery room that fateful day…
the medical suggestion to allow their newly born son,
a son without arms, to die.
Remember—God affords man choice…
A choice to allow a baby to live or a baby to die…
Despite our smug arrogance, man’s earthly vision is limited—
what we see as a burden, hardship or hindrance often has far-reaching and
unseen reverberations—
reverberations that have the potential to change the lives of those we have yet to meet.
Hear and read Daniel’s amazing story.
Meet his wife and children…and hear his testimony to God’s amazing Glory.
The choice to spit or not to spit pales in compariosn to the choice to live or not live…
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