a lil Background......(Before getting started sets in...)

….I can hear her laugh as she opened the countrified screen door giving off its screeching alarms to let all know someone else had entered. My grandpa was onto his coffee and off to his days activities. I alone would sit in the kitchen with her as she prepared the rest of that huge country breakfast that was left over for me and then transition into dinner. I would reap the benefits of it all. She taught me so much. I love her for loving me and even now…20 years to the day of her death, I still look to honor her and the memories I have for her in my heart.

Minnie May (Morris) Goshen 1932-1990

Each morning my grandparents ritual was to get up and dressed, start a fire in the heater, then sit to eat breakfast. I remember looking out the window from our trailer across the street. I can still see a cool brisk summer morning waiting for the chimney to smoke. That was our signal. That was their way of letting me know that it was time to come on over and get it while its hot. Krispy Kreme has their ’Hot’ light….grandma had smoke signals! I doubt they did it on purpose at first…however they did know the significance of it to me eventually. My grandfather jokes still come up about his tricks on not lighting the fire until after breakfast. Just so he could laugh at me showing up late. Nothing compares to the love you get from grandparents. It too is truly priceless.

On May the 25^th of 1990 my grandmother passed away. I still remember that day as if it was yesterday. She left this earth due to congestive heart failure. “Fluid around the HEART, Fluid in the LUNGS..Fluid!....” was all I heard as a 9yo kid. I didn’t understand what high blood pressure was. Diabetes wasn’t a young folks disease so I didn’t understand it enough to care what it was, so I thought. Taking pills was something sick people did and I wasn‘t sick. Dialysis was something I witnessed or heard a lot of people went through…but never did it affect me. BUT It should have since these were and are still things that affected those around me on a daily basis.

After she passed away it literally changed the dynamic of my family. It left a void in my heart. She was grace on earth. For a child that went through a major part of my life feeling rejected and unaccepted…she made sure I knew I was family. AGAIN!! That was 20 years ago….and now I’m needing the additional inspiration to crack open, fall into, dive head first…or whatever you call it…into this next section of my life. I pray that the strength I felt they portrayed to me as a yungin’ empowers me to accomplish some small goals. I will do these things for God and pray that it honors him. I will do this for myself in hopes that I’m here another day to do His Will. I will do this for my Minnie Mae Goshen who after all these years still inspire me. I will do this because I truly believe that her showing me how to eat and smothering me with love through food was her only way of showing me that. I appreciate that…I really, really do.

Now its time to learn how to be healthy. I am going to take it one day at a time. The good, the bad & the ugly. I’m going to truly make an effort to get my health together. I wouldn’t put your money on me. I wasn’t blessed to believe in myself and to be so extremely confident as others seem to be. So this is definitely going to be a HOT MESS…..