On Facebook, my friend Connie, posted this photo.  Love it. A former classmate wrote last night that  it was our 40th anniversary since graduating from high school.  We'd all marched on June 8, 1972.  Dang, I don't even remember my wedding dates, much less those of high school. My mind is so full up with everything else.

Financially, having been a single mother pretty much my entire life, it's been extraordinarily challenging. Providing for 39 children has been a little wearying and rather stressful.

The best aspect of it is in regards to how little I need materially in this world.  I love empty spaces, long, cleaned-off, zen-like counters, completely cleared desks, vast floor spaces, and smooth surface coffee tables.

I only have a few outfits to my name, no wasted time any day on having to choose something, there's so little choice, and I love that. No amount of make-up nor any expensive clothes will change the fact that I'm nearly 58 years old.

The less I own, the less I need to maintain, and, most importantly in my world, the less that can be stolen from me, or broken in a furious rage.

Our treasures are in Heaven.

I still have more kids who will need me to put them through college.  I'll figure it out, in spite of the Hell I'm still enduring in another realm.  I do not lash back, karma's gonna be a bear for some folks who do their level best to try and ruin everything for others.  I pity people who are just mean and ugly to others, they must be terribly miserable on the inside.

At yard sales today I spent a whopping 50 cents on me, buying a New York Times Crossword Puzzle Book that had an $11.95 sales price sticker on it.  I bought a mirror for five bucks to put upstairs either in CW or Martin's room, there was a Home Decor $59.99 original price tag hard glued to the back.

Oh my goodness.  Even if I had money, I'd never blow it like that on anything.  Sticker price shock.  I'd scream like a banshee inside a real store in response to prices.

I also bought my zillionth copy of Mere Christianity by CS Lewis, one of the best books ever, but it seems as if I've given away every copy I've ever bought.

The more I give away, which is pretty much everything, my entire life, all my time, my heart and my soul, and every single red cent cent that's ever come into this house, the more it seems as if I'm demonically attacked by others.  That's OK, I see The Big Picture.  I know with very deep assurance that I'm doing exactly what I'm supposed to be doing in every aspect of my life.

Grandma, up in Virginia still, visited her former long-time neighbor, the sweetest woman in Hampton, Miss Jackie who's now 84. Jackie's daughter died in her 20s, she was a friend of my siblings and I, Jackie's husband's gone too, she's fought cancer and has yet another health battle right now.  In spite of it all though, she's relentlessly cheerful, upbeat, loving and fun.  That so speaks to me.

I shut down during battles, conserving my energy, knowing I have to be ON 24-7 here, plus fight for everything else, stewing sometimes in my own resentment of some hateful people when, in reality, if I were a better, or stronger, Christian, I'd take a more mature view on everything, knowing deeply that all things work out for our good, which is why I walk around mumbling (praying) all day long.

By the time I slowed down last night, getting Chuy and Lily to some friend's houses, Allen to an event, Sabrina to work, checking Twitter news feeds I nearly fell down in shock.  Another law enforcement officer shot in Athens?  Our delightful, progressive and interesting nearby town? The home of R.E.M?

A mentally ill man shot one Clarke County sheriff’s deputy and nearly shot a second Friday afternoon at the rear of the Athens-Clarke County Courthouse.

Cpl. J.T. Williams suffered a gunshot wound to the leg shortly before 3 p.m. as he and other deputies struggled to remove the man from his mother’s car after she brought him to the courthouse to be involuntarily committed to a psychiatric hospital, according to officials at the scene.

A photo of the mother crying on a park bench, a policeman consoling her.  

This mom made me tear up, suppressing sobs because I've been in her shoes.

Do you have any idea how many deputies have had to hug and/or console me in my own grief over the years?

There might be nothing more scary on this earth than dealing with raging mental illnesses.

Someone is gonna get hurt.  Then fingers get pointed at the adoptive, or the foster, or the birth mom, as if we can manage mental illnesses?

Professionals can't manage these illnesses.

Medications can't mange these rages.

Restraints, strait jackets, psychiatric hospitalizations, jails, facilities, programs and resources can't suppress these voices in people's heads.

Wake the heck up America.

Thank God that deputy is gonna be OK.  Thank God.