My mother is my hero.
She is the bravest, strongest, most shining soldier in God’s Army that I know, shining unconditional love, and she doesn’t even go to church anymore. She made me what I am today.
There is a psychic whose work she loves. This is one of our rare points of contention. This person does not set well with me-enough said.
She got tickets to see her and and won the “lottery” of being one of those called up on stage to speak to her!
My mother bounded up, exploding with happees, so overwhelmed to get to meet this person whom she felt was a friend. “I KNEW it! I KNEW it!” she cried with joy.
“You’re psychic,” durred the psychic.
This person, who previously had been leaning forward to communicate with the people called up, suddenly pulled back, wary, watching my mother.
My mother was dumbfounded. I was NOT. Her positive energy can be intimidating, but she did not expect it to happen here.
This incident inspired me to email our friends about this unexpected visit, but being the heels-kicking-up-Donkee I am, I had to further my excitement by saying what it made me think of.
I was for some reason reminded of Lord of the Rings, when the women and children hid in the tower, and cowered in fear.
I suddenly knew my mother would NOT have been cowering! She would have been leading the group, like Scarlett O’Hara, all eyes looking to her for guidance. (She’s fairly bossy, LOL!)
She would be leading them in songs, and games, and play! The children would not know about the outside threat, and she would bravely entertain them.
If evil came to the door, she would meet it there, just like Scarlett, and fight to the last bloody bone. She does not fear evil.
The bloody bone…
When my mother was five, she was shot in the leg by accident. Her father rushed her to the hospital. Her blood type was rare, and they had to go out on the street and appeal to strangers for help. Her leg was practically hanging by a sinew , and they wanted to remove it. She fought them and she kept it.
The gouge is deep to the ligaments, and a wound would be a frightening challenge-she protected it well over the years, and became a slow, deliberate mover because of it.
But one day, she was careless, and brushed it against a corner of a cardboard box. It tore the teensy bit of skin and made a hole.
One that would simply NOT heal.
My mother has many scars: one from falling in scalding water, one from cancer on her face, on her breast-she fought and beat cancer-her leg, her upper thighs, filled with buckshot (she sets off the airport alarms) . She watched TWO of her childhood homes burn to the ground. Her female organs were also not spared insult-this beautiful woman who should have had many children (she is the oldest of ten!) instead suffered miscarriages. Instead she became a day care mother for several years, a vessel from which to pour her love: the children cried when they had to go home- the parents stayed for cookies and became friends.
This wound did not heal for seven years. Then, one day, she got a message, “Brenda, your leg will heal.”
She told dad a couple of days later, and they talked about how there was no blood getting to that area.
Then he said, “Why don’t you PUT a little blood in it?” and she did. The hole healed almost immediately.
Another of life’s little miracles.
They happen to us all the time. She taught me how to listen to the messages, and how to love. I did not inherit her bravery, but I work at it. I remember a dream she told me of, that my cousins Greggy and Karlton were playing in her sewing room and came running to her, terrified. She went to the room. There was an evil spirit in it, terrorizing them. She became furious and told it <deleted>. It got the Hell out of there. I see her having this same courage in real life.
I am now fighting personal battles that require bravery that comes nothing close to hers. I don’t have it. So I use another tactic. I got it from “Defending Your Life” with Albert Brooks. One scene got me rather teary…on a game show in Judgment City, a man was asked if he was going to face his fear, and he said yes! The game show host got excited and said, “He’s facing his fear! He’s facing his fear!” I never forgot it.
Then, not long ago, something new came to me, “The angels cheer when you face your fear!”
My face warms with a thrill, just writing it! 
Now, when I face a conflict, and I am trying hard, I say it to myself, sometimes like a mantra, and imagine them supporting me when I pass up my temptations, or try to be brave.
She has taught me so much.
