family members - Tracy M. Smith

19 Jul

Last Man Standing

trsmith Blog, family members, God, Hope, Loss, Older People 5 1

My husband and I were in the mall. He was getting his watch fixed. I needed to sit down so I went back into the mall. Suddenly I realized I was talking to myself. Out loud. When I went home, I wrote this poem. Little old lady, sitting all alone, Talking to herself, ’cause she doesn’t have a phone. No one to call, there’s nobody home. One by one they left her, and now they’re all gone. Gone are the…..

05 Sep

Sour Grapes

trsmith Blog, Commandments, family members, God, Godly heritage, Heaven, Obedience, Responsibility, Ungodly Heritage 1 0

My “To Do” list for when I get to Heaven is growing. The first hundred years, I want to stand on the Mount of Olives overlooking the New Jerusalem and praise God for His faithfulness and loving kindness and mercy to me. Then I have to find Ezekiel. I have to tell him that I read his book, and that what he said set me free from believing that I was under a curse from my father. I don’t know…..

26 Apr

To Pray Or Not

trsmith Blog, family members, God, Jesus, Peace, Prayer 1 0

To pray or not to pray, that is the question. It’s a question I have grappled with since I became a believer in Jesus. In “Choosing Life,” I told you about my dysfunctional family. I may have been the scapegoat, but the destructive force in our lives was my father. It was in my mid-twenties that I decided to believe that Jesus was real and that He was my only hope. My first prayer for my father was that he…..

27 Mar

No Roses

trsmith Allergies, Blog, Book, Death, family members, God, Heart, Loss, Parenting, Perfume, Rejection, Tragedy 2 1

In “Choosing Life,” I told you that I am allergic to roses. When I heard the song “I Never Promised You A Rose Garden,” I was thrilled. Nothing would be more deadly to me that a rose garden. Bottom line: Never be allergic to something that everybody loves. On the news today, the lead story was a German airliner that crashed into the Alps. The father of one of the young people killed in the crash said to the other…..

25 Jan

A Yes Face

trsmith Blog, Book, Character, family members, Freedim, Government, Kindness, Lying, Patriotism, Traditions, Truth 3 1

During the Revolutionary War, the American army was crossing a river on horseback. A man was standing close to the crossing, watching the soldiers cross. When General Washington was about to cross, the man approached him and asked him for a ride across the river. Washington agreed, and the man mounted the horse behind Washington. Half way across the river, Washington asked the man why he waited for him and why he asked him and not the other soldiers. The…..

13 Sep

Clean-up On Aisle 4

trsmith Blog, family members, Flood, Heart, Heaven, Mess, Opinions 1 1

In “Choosing Life,” I told you that I was an only child. When I married George, I got a whole new family. Instantly I had a mom and two sisters-in-law and a brother-in-law. My brother-in-law’s wife was my third sister-in-law. I’ll call her Madge. Madge was a fourth generation Californian, and a feisty one at that. If there was one thing that Madge had, it was opinions. And she held them strongly. Most of her opinions revolved around the sad…..

30 Aug

Run For It

trsmith Blog, Book, Divorce, family members, Life Lessons, Parenting, Survival, Violence 0 0

In “Choosing Life,” I told you that my first husband was a violent man. It started with a slap across the face that knocked me down. It went on to a punch aimed at my one year old who wouldn’t sit down in the back seat of the car: his first black eye. Then when my son was three and a half, he walked in front of the TV during a football game. My soon to be ex punched him,…..

09 Aug

Fantasy Land

trsmith Blog, Book, Commandments, family members, God, Life, Mothers, Truth 1 1

In “Choosing Life,” I told you about my dysfunctional family. Both my mother and my father were damaged people. They disowned me in 1975. In 1980, my father left my mother for a woman younger than me. My mother had been a diabetic since 1943. so my father left a very sick woman. He drained her bank accounts. I re-established contact with her when I learned that my father left. In 1987, her kidneys failed. I brought her into my…..

12 Jul

Ending Well

trsmith alcoholism, Blog, Book, family members, Life Lessons, memoir 2 0

When I wrote “Choosing Life” I told you a little about how my father ended. Let me tell you how he began. I have a box of momentos that I saved from my childhood. In it there are several pins that my father received from having perfect attendance at his Baptist Sunday School. When I became a Christian (in my twenties), my dad told me that he had “accepted Christ” when he was a boy in Sunday School. My dad…..

04 Jul

Life Lessons for Free

trsmith Blog, Book, family members, Friendship, Life, Life Lessons, Older People, Teaching Children 0 1

In my book, “Choosing Life,” I told you that I taught my sons when they were youngsters to be patient with older people. We called them LOC’s and LOD’s, Little Old Chicks and Little Old Dudes. I told them that older people had worked hard all their lives and that they could go as slow as they wanted. And that we were going to wait for them. Children need to be taught. Do you want to know why they move…..

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Last Man Standing

Sour Grapes

To Pray Or Not

No Roses

A Yes Face

Clean-up On Aisle 4

Run For It

Fantasy Land

Ending Well

Life Lessons for Free

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