As I sat enjoying the experience, I was struck how life seems to go round and round and somehow ends up connecting the dots in ways least expected. Let me explain. 

From 1977 through ‘79, I had the privilege of touring with one of Nashville’s most well known and well respected studio musicians, multi-instrumentalist, and the primo harmonicist in the world, Charlie McCoy. He and his backing band, Barefoot Jerry, taught me what performing on a big stage under the spotlights should look like. They were disciplined, tight, and did their job.  The same was also expected of me from the git-go. 

At the time, I had previously been a working, gig musician since 1969 with two major recording contracts under my belt, but when Charlie asked me to tour with him as his piano player and featured vocalist, well…that was next level. But let me tell you…his band did not welcome a ‘chick’ piano player/singer at all. 

Okay…pretty sure I was also a bit of window dressing, so I needed to prove to the guys that I could do the gig with no excuses, no drama. But if he hadn’t believed I could cut it on the same level, Charlie McCoy would never have hired me in the first place. 

And this ‘lucky break’ was from what I thought was a chance meeting in Nashville in 1976.

I was 26 and about to record my album Almost Persuaded as Sherri (with an ‘i’) King on the United Artists label, when a friendly, completely unassuming man in his thirties popped into the office of my publisher, Gallico Music, to see a friend of his. Because I was also a staff songwriter, I was often in the office during business hours, so someone asked me to play the resident piano and sing a few tunes. As usual, I was happy to comply.

To say I was clueless as to who the unassuming man was who was intently watching me play the piano and sing, was an understatement. Charlie McCoy, both as a friend and mentor, was to impact my life in ways that were unfathomable on that long ago afternoon. 

Shortly after that, Charlie asked me to join his band, and with it came the instant clout afforded musicians in that sphere. I always had a gig at a time when so many other aspiring female artists had to work other jobs just to pay the bills. Thankfully, I never had to ‘pay my dues’ because of what I thought at the time was fate. Maybe it was fate…or just maybe it was set-up by a mutual friend. (Thank you again, Linda Kimball!) 

So, how does Dylan enter the picture? Well…ten years before in 1965, I was 15 and already playing small local gigs in Knoxville. I taught myself to play guitar because it was easy to transport and more dependable than relying on whether a decent piano would be available whenever I was asked to perform. My guitar and a Dylan song…the perfect combo!

By this time, Dylan was white-hot. He had taken the straight forward message from the likes of Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger–two greats in the era of folk/protest songs–and amplified it as only Dylan could, then took the whole genre to a level I’m not sure anyone saw coming, leaving everyone else in his dust. 

That same year, Charlie McCoy was visiting his friend, producer Bob Johnston in New York City, when he mentioned he was producing a Dylan session and invited Charlie to attend. At the session, he was surprised to learn that Dylan had one of his albums, Harpoon Man, and invited Charlie to play guitar that day on “Desolation Row.” The 11 minute song was finished in only 2 takes, enough to convince Dylan in part, to later agree to record in Nashville with Charlie as session leader.

Long story short, Dylan’s Blonde on Blonde album, labeled by critics as “a benchmark in American music,” paved the way for folk-rock recording artists to follow using the now legendary musicians that Charlie introduced in that first Nashville session.

Over a decade later, I would also get to know, record with, and even perform with many of those same names. What a world!  

So who is the Bob Dylan of today?

As we know from all of his very public escapades, Dylan was and probably still is, a very flawed character. We may argue with how he progressed musically from era to era–and God knows we perhaps wouldn’t want to be his friend–but as gods go, he was acknowledged and darn near worshipped by many as a genius. His lyrics have been remembered and sung by generations just as enthralled as I was in 1965. 

I firmly believe that Dylan could walk on a stage where the audience is breathlessly waiting to hear the first word sung–just as we were 2 nights ago–mumble a few unintelligible words, and go home. And that’s exactly what he did. And I am here for it!

Except for briefly standing up a few times like he was finally getting his mojo going, he sat middle stage at a keyboard. His band, legendary in their own right, faithfully hung in and anticipated his next song choice as he meandered around on the keys with sometimes jarringly loud, singly struck notes making their way through the sound system, and mumbled almost unintelligibly for over an hour and a half to an adoring audience who cheered each time he made it to a well-recognized portion of one of his tunes. 

But by gosh…it was Dylan! And I waited along with everyone else to hear anything I recognized. 

When he picked up his harmonica, I felt the same, “Wait for it…” as everybody else, and there it was! Dylan played harmonica! Yaaayyyy! (Keep in mind I toured with one of the all-time great harmonica players in the world, Charlie McCoy, so was I impressed by Dylan’s harmonica playing? Not hardly. But it was Dylan! lol)

The one thing I missed–other than hearing one or two songs from the olden days–was seeing that scowling, craggy face in the extremely lowly lit stage. But in the end, that didn’t matter either.

It was Bob g-d Dylan! 

Look for Sherry’s first novel, When The Extraordinary Becomes The Ordinary, in late 2026. You can find her at Re-Group

In 2006 I wrote a song called I Knew Your Daddy, Little Girl. It was a true story, prompted by the daughter of a cousin of mine getting in touch with me in the early ’90s completely out of the blue. (That part of the tale is worth a short story itself.) But it was years later after the daughter, Chelle Rose, and I became close that I learned through her retelling of her life as ‘the little girl’ the all too real tragedy of her father’s life. A life that had been only whispered about for far too long in my mother’s large family–one that I had previously never understood as I searched my memory to connect the bits of gossip that flowed to me through the years.

In fact, it unearthed the swampy underbelly of the sordid mess of my cousin’s parentage, unacknowledged and twisted to the point of not knowing just who or what to believe. Through the years my anger surfaced, bit by bit, about how the truth had been covered over, until it finally bubbled up to the surface in the song. This story had to be told. And my way to do that at the time was writing lyrics and a melody, performed with a gutsy delivery in such a way to convey the rawness of what really happened in a story that began with child abuse.

Fast forward to 2023. I was drifting through my imagination one afternoon trying to think of a great title for a new book when it popped in my mind. Of course! The perfect title had already been literally recorded in my brother Barry’s Purple Garage Recording Studio in 2006. I played piano and sang the partially produced demo, and Barry played the rest of the instruments, exceedingly well, I might add. The basic story in the song is true, with some extra drama, to be sure. But to flesh it out properly, I needed a murder (not in the original story). And…I needed to watch it unfold in the eyes of the memories of a little girl.

So here we are. Another adventure into who we are as imperfect human beings, stumbling through life as if it may be our last. I look forward to the journey all the way to the end–an ending I already know–but what happens in between? What twists and turns will lead us to why The Universe set up this book 18 years ago? I can hardly wait to find out. I invite you to join me for the rest of the story of I Knew Your Daddy, Little Girl.

P.S. In 2015, my cousin (the Daddy in the song) called me–again out of the blue–to set the record straight as to why he acted toward me the way he did all those years ago. That confession has died with him. He’s now in the realm of complete understanding and love. Play on, sweet piano man. Stranger than fiction? Life always is.

Chapter 1   Innocence

Memories. Snatches of smells, sounds, feelins.’ A dog barkin’ in the distance. A hand touchin’ my face. The smell of roses. A scream. It was the scream that woke me up. Did I scream? Or was it somebody else? Then nothin.’ No memory of what happened next.

I was 6 years old. I had never heard agony before. I guess in an earlier time, I would have heard that sound if mama was giving birth at home, but we were city suburb folks. As I remember it now, it was like the sound of a hurt animal. At least that’s how my brain still translates it. But now I think I know what—who–it was. It was my cousin.

That was the first summer Mama left me for a week with her oldest brother’s family. They lived in a small town outside Knoxville. For the longest time, I thought it was far, far away, not just 20 miles down the highway. Bein’ shipped way off to another town made the trip every summer seem more special.

It was also in that same year–1956–that the Doyle boy was murdered. That’s what I figured out after I was grown. Little girls don’t get to hear the gory details, not from my mama, anyway. Funny how she thought I wouldn’t hear what happened from the neighbors. But adults forget that children tend to linger longer than necessary when there’s whisperin’ and shushin.’ They know when there’s a story percolatin.’ Kinda’ like they can feel it bubble up from the dirt where it really belongs, buried and forgotten. But the only buryin’ that summer was James Donald Doyle or JD as he was called after he was killed. He was reduced to a couple of initials, poor thing. Jimmy Don one day, then JD the next.

But the thing that’s always bothered me is the way the details got covered over. I would say normally, if the sheriff’s son gets himself murdered, that sheriff is gonna’ be hot on the trail of somebody, even if it’s the wrong person. But JD’s daddy just sorta’ stopped lookin’ altogether. Very puzzlin.’

JD and I weren’t buddies even though he lived right across the street from us ‘cause he was 6 years older than me. But I remember how he played boogie woogie piano. I had just started piano lessons, so anybody who played with their left hand flyin’ was already at the pinnacle of piano-playin’ as far as I was concerned. And JD could fly…high!

He would sit down on the piano bench, look for the peddles–and bein’ an extra short fella’–scooch forward, then his left hand would take off. Just before his right hand joined in, he would look at whoever was watchin’ and smile a big one. Looked like his lips grew twice as big just to make room for that giant smile. Wonder what he looked like just before he was murdered? Guess I’ll never know.

JD’s mama was a big woman. Big as in weight, not tall though. Prob’ly why JD himself was so short. But unlike his mama, Mildred, he was skinny. A skinny, short, piano playin’ fella’ doesn’t generally fare well when it comes to packs of other little boys. Children can be brutal to the runts in their midst. And so it was for poor JD.

Except for his piano playin,’ I’m not sure what I remember about the actual boy, but I do remember the drips and drabs of what became the saga of the Doyle family troubles. It was like watchin’ a slow-movin’ movie right across the street. And since I couldn’t watch every hour of the day and night, I wonder now how much action I missed.

After JD died, I became a kinda’ stand-in kid for Mildred who was alone most of the time. The piano that JD had played stood in the livin’ room untouched, so I decided it needed playin’ once in a while. It was a tall upright piano made of dark oak wood, similar to the look of the old oak desks in our grammar school. Somehow you could see the history of everybody that had touched the wood like an invisible signature. “Jilly sat here.” That’s me, Jilly Marie King. That’s not who I am now. But I’ll get to that later.

Sometimes after school, starting around the 4^th grade, I would tell my mama that I was goin’ visitin,’ and then I would run across the road to see what Mildred was up to. She always had one project or another under construction. Could be makin’ food, or sewin’ curtains, or tendin’ to her flowers. Whatever she was doin’–bein’ the very curious child that I was–I saw Mildred as a wealth of learnin.’ And to me, every lesson was fun. But the cakes…well…took the cake.

Mildred Lou Doyle was an artiste, a true sculptress of elaborate creations ordered by local folks for birthdays and such. Tasty white vanilla and chocolate 2 or 3-layer cakes were the canvas for her art, mainly roses, big and small and every size in between. Red, yellow, pink, lavender, blue, any color she could conjure up became roses that were then carefully and strategically arranged on top of swirled to perfection buttercream icing. And I was her very willing student.

She taught me to blend food coloring into a mound of clay-like, sweet marzipan candy until the perfect color saturation was achieved. Sometimes a very picky customer gave her a Happy Birthday napkin or a dessert plate to match back to, but never fear–Mildred was a natural when it came to color. She lived in it…literally.

Her entire kitchen screamed color. Turquoise appliances and red everywhere. Cherries on all the kitchen towels with heaps of brightly colored fruit on the tablecloth covering her white formica kitchen table with red chairs. The countertop was white too and a perfect background for her ceramic fruit covered canisters for flour, sugar, tea, coffee, and a few cute little cherub faced salt n’ pepper shakers that seemed to be there just for fun. I guess she wanted to be able to see the food instead of another pile of fruit or cherries, so her plates were white. It was like she needed all that goin’ on to fill up her life. And when I was there, my young eyes always had somethin’ interesting to look at, somethin’ to stop my mind from wonderin’ about other things that were prob’ly none of my business.

Anyway, I always felt like I was inside the pages of mama’s big heavy, 3-ring binder, Betty Crocker Cookbook when I was in Mildred’s kitchen. Brightly colored and very detailed pictures of what a final dish or dessert should look like when the recipes magically morphed into real food, fueled my dreams of makin’ a Baked Alaska, or a Lady Baltimore Cake. Heck, I wouldn’t have known a fig if it bit me on the butt, but I knew it was worth findin’ ‘cause it was in the filling of the Lady Baltimore. And although Mama was a great home cook, she stuck with lemon meringue pie or caramel iced chocolate cake. Not very pretty, but tasty all the same. So a short jaunt across the street took me into a world as close to Betty Crocker as I was gonna’ get.

To get back to the makin’ of the cakes…after I got the color just right, Mildred would guide me as I made each delicate marzipan petal in the correct proportions that would produce the perfect rose. You see, each petal formed the rose from the inside out. Made me feel like I actually caused a rose to bloom as it got bigger and bigger with each petal. Then I learned to fill out my little creation with bright green leaves carefully tucked around the big rose juuuh-st right.

Of course, my little roses didn’t make it on the big cakes. But Mildred, in her wisdom, always had a cupcake or two for me to practice on. I thought it was a shame that so much work disappeared in only a few bites when I was done. But that didn’t slow me down as I bit into my rose and that buttercream icing. I knew there would always be other cupcakes with endless combinations of colors waitin’ across the street when I took a notion to visit the next time.

I never saw Mildred eat much of anything, but she had plenty of time to figure out how to keep her weight up with Sheriff Doyle being gone so much and JD being her only kid and him gone altogether. But not once during all those days I sat at her kitchen table did she tell me that JD had been adopted. I had heard talk, of course, but mama always told me that JD was gone, so let that question lay unless Mildred decided to talk about it. I liked Mildred and didn’t want the darkness I would sometimes see pass over her face to get stuck there like a mask, so I waited patiently to hear from her mouth about that part of the story. But she kept that tidbit to herself. So, I had to watch the big story unfold from across the street.

Speakin’ of darkness…there was another mighty interesting visitor to the Doyle house. You could see an ugly mask set in like plaster on the face of my Uncle Jib, sorta’ like it would crack if he laughed too much. Come to think of it, when he did laugh it didn’t ring true. Too loud and quickly lost in that scowl again. And I could never figure out why he visited the Doyle house during the day from time to time.

Uncle Jib lived quite a distance down the road and would rarely take the time to come across the street to visit mama who was his sister, for gosh sakes. He’d just pop in and pop out over there when the Sheriff wasn’t home, and nobody said a word–at least that I heard. And if I caught sight of him comin’ out of her house, Mildred always seem to be cryin’ and dryin’ her tears with a wadded up hanky. One of the white ones with red roses she embroidered on the corners. You see, she stayed very busy creating anything to do with roses.

Seems like large families can store up odd shit until it overflows like a stopped up toilet. Trouble is…unless you get rid of what’s causin’ the problem, it will continue to create a mess that has to be cleaned up over and over. And so it was with mama’s family, and by association, the Doyles.

***********

            “Jilly!”

“What is it, Henry?”

“Come here a minute. I got my shoelaces all goobered up!”

“O…kay…don’t move! I’m on my way!” slowly rolling the office chair away from the desk.

Goobered up. He’s so funny. If I couldn’t see the humor in our situation…well…don’t go there, Jilly. Not helpful.

Look at him, sittin’ there paralyzed by shoelaces, for heaven’s sake! He’s so happy most of the time, though. When I look into his eyes, I see more than most people do. Growin’ up with an older brother who seemed younger than me was just the way it was. But what happened when he was only 10 years old now somehow covers up the ‘what was.’

I know he thinks I’m sittin’ at my computer conjuring up a character that’s him, his story, his life. And he’s right. How could I not tell that story? So much needless suffering all because of one man. Henry honey, you deserve to be heard, especially now when you can’t string together enough words to make a sentence.  

Okay. Henry’s un-goobered now. Let’s see if I can get back into the zone. How many times do I settle down to write only to get interrupted a gazillion times. Oh well, that’s life, our life. Settle yourself, Jilly, and get back at it.

***********

My first visit to Uncle Jib’s house didn’t last very long. After I heard that scream in the middle of the night, I took a good look at my uncle the next morning and screamed myself to go home off and on for a few hours. I didn’t stop cryin’ ‘til Mama pulled into the carport. I don’t remember what happened after that, but by the next summer all was forgotten and I was back there at the end of June.

Mama let me wear a new dress this go-round, and I hung out the car window yellin’ to Darlene, my cousin, “I’m wearin’ a new dress! And it cost ten dollars!” I guess it sounded like a lot of money to me. But how would I know? I was only 7.

And so from then on, every summer I visited Darlene and Duane, and Uncle Jib and Aunt Evie, in the town only 20 miles down the road until the year I turned 12. That year the shit hit the fan and I was never to see any of them again–at least in that house–for many years. But it’s funny how people you thought of as part of the past can suddenly show up outta’ nowhere.

***********

When I was little, Mama and Daddy loved to watch The Hit Parade on TV. They would sing along with Gisele MacKenzie and Snooky Lanson and hold me on one lap or another while I clapped. By the time I was 10, that show was replaced by Flatt and Scruggs with some Perry Como thrown in. Perry was boring and except for Earl Scruggs lightning-fast banjo pickin,’ I didn’t care for bluegrass. But what I did like was Rock N’ Roll.

Mama would take me and my brother and sister to the Tooty Fruity hamburger joint, or the big public swimming pool near the Alcoa aluminum plant and give me change to play the juke box. Neil Sedaka’s “Calendar Girl” or “Breaking Up Is Hard To Do” or “Runaway” by Del Shannon. I can still taste the chocolate malts and smell the chlorine when I think of those tunes.

The last time I visited my cousins was the summer of 1962. Mama and Aunt Evie decided to meet at the big Alcoa pool, then I would go on from there and save Mama havin’ a trip of 20 miles each way with the 2 younger kids. Duane drove my aunt and Darlene to meet us and we all spent a couple hours of fun in the sun while the mamas talked.

Darlene kept an eye on Tricia and Teeter Tot—Tot for short, as my brother Thomas was called–while Duane watched me dive off the high diving board. I was showin’ off my new 2-piece bathing suit that I was sure made me look much older than 12. I can still picture the way Duane looked when I paddled over to him after an especially good dive. He was cute but always looked like he was dodgin’ a lightnin’ strike. Kinda’ skittish, lookin’ over his shoulder all the time.

 “I’m gonna’ kill Daddy before I leave town.” He just threw it out there kinda’ like an afterthought.

“You’re lyin’ Duane. Leave town? You’re not gonna’ leave town or kill your daddy either. Why do you say stuff like that? If your Mama heard you, she’ll kill you!”

“Be quiet, little girl. You don’t know nothin’ about life. You think you do, but you don’t.”

“Well, I know more than you think I do. And quit callin’ me a little girl. I’m not so little anymore.”

Duane looked at me and said, “Yeah, I noticed that.” Then looked away real quick.

“Hey Duane…are you still playin’ piano in that Rock N’ Roll band? I heard you playin’ that upright in y’all’s basement last year. Me and Darlene played it too. Why don’t you and me play a duet when we get to your house? Or you play and I’ll sing. I could be in your band. I’m pretty good.”

“I’ve heard you. You’re good alright, but too young. We don’t want girls in the band anyway. They’re trouble with a capital T. Besides, we’re gonna’ travel around. You can’t do that.”

“I will someday! Yes, I will. You wait n’ see!”

“Listen, Jilly. Stop askin’ questions. I’m eighteen now. I could get into trouble hangin’ around with you. And your daddy would kill me for sure.”

“Mama told you to watch me when I go into the deep end of the pool. I’ll tell if you don’t.”

It was then that it dawned on me why Duane was always tryin’ to get rid of me. He was afraid of how he felt about me, his first cousin. And me bein’ the flirt that I was made things much worse during that summer. But it would be over 50 years until he confessed it. And I was not the person who heard that confession.

That was the last summer I saw him until almost 10 years later. And by that time, I was nothin’ like the pesky little girl that followed him around those summers at his house. I was a young woman who had been livin’ in New York City and snagged a major recording contract. My love of Rock N’ Roll had morphed into an edgy sort of Rockabilly sound. And I was ridin’ high after my first single had hit the Hot Country Singles Chart on Billboard.

It’s funny how the past seems to time fly by when you’re decades away from a memory. And most memories become what you want them to be. Either very bad, or absolute fantasy until they hardly resemble what really happened. But Duane’s smile 10 years later is burned in my memory ‘cause it was the first time I saw him genuinely smile. But what was underneath that smile, deep down inside him, hadn’t gone away. And I was so full of my 21-year-old self that I couldn’t see it–at least on that night. How I acted toward him was downright unfair and stupid. And such was much of my growin’ up. As Rhett Butler said about Scarlett O’Hara in Gone With The Wind, “You think you’re still the cutest little thing in shoe leather,” or somethin’ close to that. And as I sit here now relivin’ that portion of my life, I will admit to still owning Rhett’s sentiment. A woman’s vanity does not necessarily die along with her body.

End of Excerpt

Sherry writes music, true stories with humor, fictional novels, and how-to guides to help clients move past illness to health and beyond. Sherry’s website: Re-Group

How many times can my heart break after losing a precious furbaby? Over and over and over. And each time feels like the first. But what those precious beings leave with me is another layer of unconditional love and acceptance for all my quirks and shortcomings as a guardian. They are why I’m an animal communicator with all the difficult lessons, and I hope wisdom, learned from experiencing the life and passing of yet another life into the realm of Spirit. The realm of Spirit. I will be met by all of them again. And the first one will be Buddy.

I’ve had the privilege of sharing this life with many precious dogs and cats that asked almost nothing from me, only to be fed and loved. And I remember each one like it was yesterday, not over a span of fifty years. Funny how I struggle to remember the good times when all the guilt and self-blaming pops up instead. Why couldn’t I always have known how to better feed them, or respond to their basic instincts without cross words? What in my makeup as a human ever gave me the right to treat them as anything but the gorgeous, elegant, noble creatures they are? Who am I to question the magnificence of creation of which we are all a part? Buddy is me. I am Buddy. We are both a part of the whole.

Animals that we bring into our home to live with us are only ‘below us’ in height which is why I look through their eyes to understand them better. Imagine living in a world of giants speaking words we mostly can’t comprehend, but can immediately feel the emotion those words carry with them. We would see a lot of legs and feet and wonder why everyone is angry with us all the time. Something as simple to humans as pulling a strip of packing tape off a roll could scare the bejesus out of us if we didn’t know anything about packing tape. (Buddy was especially frightened by the noise of packing tape.) Or placing our litter box near a stinky drain could repulse us enough to stop using the box altogether. (I witnessed this through a cat’s eyes once. He showed me a foul smell wafting by. This proved true when his guardian got close enough to the floor to smell it. Lol) And how confused would we be if the human we loved yelled because we couldn’t wait any longer to get her attention to let us out to potty? (I’m guilty. I’m guilty. I’m guilty! Confession doesn’t make me feel any better though.) It’s up to us as human guardians to interpret their simple language, the signs that seem so obvious after the fact. And to remember that most of what becomes a problem for animals is because animals often exhibit symptoms mirrored from their humans. In other words, before you yell at your animal, look inside yourself for the answer to their behavior. You can bet that’s where it’s coming from.

Buddy adopted us in late winter of 2014. He had been rescued on the coldest night of the year sitting in the middle of the road waiting as if he trusted that someone would come along and find him. And she did. A very kind and very pregnant woman named Micki scooped him up and took him home where he, being new to the pack, promptly lorded over the resident bulldog. She had her hands full with a new baby coming soon, so after exhausting all possibilities of finding the dog’s human(s) failed, she eventually found a woman who fostered chihuahua rescues. That person then reached Terry (we had already adopted another chi rescue). That’s how we came to hear about a sweet little chi mix who needed a home asap.

Our Jakie, rescued from a puppy mill several years before, had just passed, and my little longhair chihuahua shadow who wouldn’t eat when he first arrived unless I stood nearby, had left such a hole in my heart that I put my foot down. “No more dogs. Luke is enough!” Luke, a minpin/chihuahua mix, had been with us for four years and gave us enough love for several dogs. So I was firm…until I saw a photo of the sweet trusting face of Buddy. (Terry thought that all dogs had been called buddy at one time or another, so Buddy it was!) I melted like a triple scoop ice cream cone in 100 degree weather when he came around the corner of Micki’s sofa. Buddy chose us as his pack and I couldn’t say no. But Buddy made his preferred human choice very apparent almost immediately.

Buddy only relaxed his vigil when Terry was in the room. Of course, he never knew him as anyone but ‘Daddy.’ Grandma and Mommy often called out ‘Terry,’ but Buddy only payed attention when he heard ‘Daddy.’ He would raise up from his bed in the living room and watch Daddy’s every step from one room to the next. He wouldn’t move from his bed unless Daddy disappeared around the corner in the hallway, then he quickly followed making sure that he knew where his person was. He posed like a sentry in Grandma’s room waiting for his Daddy to exit the bathroom. It was almost like he held his breath until he saw the tall human sit down near him, or better yet, invited him onto his lap or in the giant dog bed that Daddy also slept in. It was Buddy’s job to keep tabs on Daddy.

His job was especially difficult when Daddy twice disappeared from the house for several weeks in 2018. Buddy never understood why he and Luke had to stay at Ashley and Jessica’s house. Neither dog knew about the brain surgery or first stroke that happened shortly after, but they did understand that Grandma and Mommy were exhausted and very worried about Daddy. And they knew better than Mommy did that they would be back in Daddy’s bed eventually. And boy! Were they happy when Ashley and Jessica brought them back home!

My sense was that Buddy heightened his vigilance after Terry came home each time from the hospital or in-patient rehabilitation in 2018. After Lukie passed in 2020, his job became even more important. And Buddy stepped up to the plate and filled the void with the biggest heart imaginable. I whispered to him minutes before he transitioned in our living room with everyone gathered round, “Wait for me. I will see you soon. Mommy loves you.”

Are you waiting for me, Buddy, tail wagging, twirling in the middle of the room? Yes. I know you are. For you are Mommy’s little boy!

Sherry writes music, true stories with humor, fictional novels, and how-to guides to help clients move past illness to health and beyond. Sherry’s website: Re-Group

YIN: S’up Buttercup?

YANG: Omg…life sucks! Can’t sleep, never enough money, underappreciated, and nobody ‘gets’ me. And then, there’s the crap thrown at me by other people. It’s never ending! 

YIN: Well, you know that you alone choose how you handle what is ‘thrown’ at you, what you do with the crap…yours or theirs.

YANG: Not another ‘glass half full’ lecture, I hope.

YIN: Ok then. If you can somehow think outside your boxed in mind, there’s a conversation to be had. If not…well…can’t help. You expect to be miserable, therefore you are miserable.

YANG: I can’t change now. Too old. And I don’t have the time. It’s not that easy. You don’t understand, my mind has a mind of its own and I can’t stop thinking those crazy thoughts. It’s too hard. And besides, I’m used to thinking this way. It feels like me. I see what’s real. You see…what do you see?

YIN: I see you spending a lot of energy just complaining. How ‘bout finding a solution instead? Not another self-help article, or worse yet, a book with all those words (insert a chortle here), but a slight little adjustment in how you think. 

The fictional author of my novel, The INNER WORLD of Celia Rose Dinwiddie Pritchard, poses a query:

YANG: Here it comes. It’s all about you and that damn novel…

YIN: Anyhoo…she asks herself a question: what is actually ‘real’? Is reality what we see, feel, and touch? Have all of us magically agreed that certain norms are acceptable or not? Or do we create our personal world entirely with imagination? The answer to both questions is…yes. 

YANG: Do you ever have a straight answer to any given question? How could you possibly understand everything that has happened to everyone in the world? And who cares, anyway. I’m concerned with me – my struggles, my challenges, my pain. If I spend my time thinking about the injustice forced upon me by my country, or God forbid, the world, I’ll go crazy! I can’t do one thing about any of that. Is yelling the only way to be heard? Well, I can get loud. Who can possibly understand how hard my life is. And tell me, why should I listen to you?

YIN: Why listen to me? Because I’ve been there, done that, lived to tell the tales, and made it my business to find out the purpose of every good and bad event. After being on this planet 70+ trips around the sun, I have figured out that it’s all about the trip, not the destination.

YANG: I’m very tired of the trip then.

YIN: I get it. I literally crashed and burned years ago after falling off a merry-go-round life that had the best, most exciting, wonderfully unbelievable things happen, and very honestly, times of pure hell. Some hell was of my own making and some seemed to exist simply because I existed. But what I now know is… everything that happened led me to the moment when I began to turn my life around. The big picture is often very difficult to see much less understand, and it’s easy to place blame on others. 

YANG: Don’t you ever want to hurt people who have hurt you?

YIN: Good heavens, I spent years railing against conventional medicine and a couple of bad marriages, but that got me exactly no where. When I started looking for solutions, small changes that I was capable of making and chose to make each day, good stuff started to happen. I began to change my perspective. And when I changed the way I viewed my life, my life changed.

YANG: What worked for you probably won’t work for me. It’s all a bunch of bulls*#t anyway. Another cure all that doesn’t cure anything.

YIN: Oh, I see. What has worked for me will never be accepted by thee. That’s sad. Anger, blame, and revenge are like self-consuming flesh-eating bacteria, the kind that infects every person within your sphere of influence – a pretty broad reach these days if you subscribe to the small but very loud minority of power grabbing cowards waiting to jump on the likeliest loud mouth bandwagon emerging from the murky depths of grifter hell. Yep, money and power speak. Oops…just a little rant. (Sorry about the run-on sentence though.)

YANG: Oh, so you’re one of ‘them.’ 

YIN: Maybe. From my perspective, so are you. But hey, time’s a wastin’ and battling against anything is a huge waste of time and energy. Go ahead and knock yourself out. Go on down the same road and stay miserable. And misery is all you will reap.

But here’s another idea. Maybe think about why you’re attached to a certain belief. Doesn’t matter if it’s about food, politics, what’s right or wrong, or if purple is a color or a state of mind. Is the belief a habit? A knee-jerk reaction from your tribe’s echo chamber? Are you holding onto a belief because it makes you feel more secure? Are you looking for someone to save you? Well, guess what…you can save yourself.

Most of the things that we’re afraid of are boogeymen of our own making. Fear begets fear. Like a snowball rolling downhill, getting bigger and bigger as it gains speed, fear makes us feel that we have no control. But each of us can gain control through our own thoughts. It takes practice, but it can be done. And therein lies peace. All the rest is only noise. Peace or noise? Which sounds better?

YANG: ???

YIN: Consider this – change only happens when you understand what to change in the first place. And whatever you believe becomes your reality. Change your beliefs, change your reality. So make your ‘thang’ yin and yang. Takes two to see the truth.

Sherry writes music, true stories with humor, cool novels, and how-to guides to help clients move past illness to health and beyond. Sherry’s website: Re-Group

Animals are here to teach us lessons. I often remember that little pearl of wisdom given by my mother during one of our many conversations about the animals that have been in our lives. Sometimes when my emotions get the better of me, guilt overtakes what I know to be true: that I am a good pet parent. There is one animal in particular that left a deep and lasting imprint on me. She was a little cat named Gigi. 

In May of 2020 while COVID was ramping up and businesses were shutting down, my stress and burnout in the veterinary field had reached an all-time high. I was also still grieving the loss of my heart cat, Charlie, who had passed away 5 months earlier. And I had a bad case of kitten fever. BAD. I wanted a furry little purring body to sit on my shoulder and make me feel better. Don’t get me wrong, I knew what bringing home a kitten would mean- a commitment to caring for an animal for the next 16 to 18 years. And I was ready for that. 

It was only a few minutes after I posted on Facebook that I was looking for a kitten that I received a message. A previous coworker sent me a photo of a tiny fluff ball whose mom was a stray neighborhood cat. I immediately drove across town to pick her up. She literally fit in the palm of my hand. I named her Georgia, “Gigi” for short. 

The curious thing about her was that despite being less than 1 lb, she had already developed her milk teeth (baby teeth), but was still unsteady when she tried to walk. This discrepancy in her development caused some debate among the veterinary staff I worked with about how old she might be. Regardless, I spent the next few weeks in kitten heaven. I carried her around, bottle fed her, taught her to use the litter box, set up a play area for her, took endless photos and videos of her snuggling with my chihuahuas and slowly exploring the vast world that was our living room. She was everything I had wanted. 

After awhile it became apparent that her wobbliness was not going away as she grew. We initially speculated that she had Cerebellar Hypoplasia, a neurological condition seen in cats in which they lack balance and fine motor skills, often causing an unsteady gait. These cats very often have normal life spans, but in Gigi’s case, it became obvious that her condition was slowly worsening. 

She was only able to walk for a few weeks before she lost function in her back legs. She had to flop and hurl herself to get from one spot to another. She was still spunky, playful and adventurous just as you would expect a kitten to be. She loved to chase her feather toy or look out the window to watch her sister go on a romp in the backyard. Unfortunately even her flopping phase was short-lived. Not too long after that, she lost the ability to move around at all on her own. She couldn’t hold herself up or even steady herself enough to eat or drink. It was at this point that I had to get creative. 

She was completely dependent on me for everything. I figured out a way to fold her up in her cat bed like a little taco, place her in a small box and prop up her bowl so that she could grasp bites of food. She had to be given water with a hamster bottle, and I had to place her in her litter box every so often so she could relieve herself. Because she was unable to groom herself, I gave her regular baths complete with a blow-dry and brushing. 

Despite her impairment, there was still an undeniable mischievous spark in her eyes, and I did everything I could to help her live her best kitten life. She went to work with me everyday in her specially made cushioned cat carrier, and she slept on her little cat bed next to my pillow every night. She liked bubble wrap, crinkled up balls of paper and her catnip banana toy. She still had moments of wobbly excitement, usually just before breakfast or dinner.

By the time Gigi was a year old, she was only 4 lbs with long legs and beautiful long tabby fur. I had become accustomed to reading the signs when she needed something. She would vocalize if I moved her too quickly. I could tell by her eyes if she wasn’t positioned in a way that she was content. My vet told me it was unlikely that she was in any pain, but I suspected differently. Her back remained arched and her muscles had atrophied throughout her tiny rigid body. She couldn’t adjust herself if she was uncomfortable. I could only imagine what that was like. 

It’s hard when you care for an animal everyday to notice gradual changes. I’m not sure exactly when, but at some point, the spark in Gigi’s eyes slowly began to diminish. They no longer lit up at the sight of a toy or when I picked her up to snuggle. She could no longer grip my finger with her little toes. She no longer objected to something she disliked. While I wanted to believe that she still had some fight left, the spunk that had kept her going for so long was no longer there. Her once sparkly eyes had become vacant.

I lost Gigi in June of 2021. A dear friend of mine cared for her while my wife and I were on vacation in California. I received a call while at Yosemite National Park that she wasn’t doing well. She wasn’t able to keep food or water down and had become increasingly lethargic. When our plane landed, we drove straight to the clinic. By that time she was having trouble breathing. I took one look at her and knew her time had come. I took a moment with her and thanked her for being with me. I told her it would be ok now and that she could go fly and be free. And so she did. 

The sadness I felt after she was gone was immense. In the midst of my grief I frequently found myself asking why. Why couldn’t she have lived longer? Why did she have to have a degenerative disease? Why did she have to worsen while I was away and unable to be with her during her last days? Had I given her everything she needed? Had she been suffering and I had somehow missed it? The guilt over the possibility that I had not been a good enough mom to her was almost too much to bear. 

Animals often give us so little clues as to how they are really feeling. Gigi gave me even less than most. Maybe she knew I couldn’t bear to let her go, so she let go of me while I was away. As unfair as it was, maybe she was meant to only be with me for a short time. Maybe the beautiful mountains of Yosemite were the best place I could have received the news of her decline. 

My journey with Gigi had morphed into something completely unexpected. If you had asked me that first day I picked her up if I would want a cat who would only walk for a few weeks, only be able to play for a few months and become completely paralyzed by the time she was a year old, my answer would have been no. But as many of us have experienced, sometimes we ask for things and are given something completely different. Whether it is good or bad, fair or unfair. Sometimes life surprises us. 

Many people might have seen it as a burden to have to care for a disabled cat. But in her short life, Gigi managed to fill my heart with joy in a way that no other animal has. I learned what it meant to care for another living thing completely selflessly. She couldn’t give me anything in return. She couldn’t run up to greet me when I arrived home; she couldn’t jump on my lap while I was laying on the couch; she couldn’t run and chase the laser pointer; she couldn’t even purr. But she was perfect in my eyes. And at the end of her life, if you had asked me if I wanted to continue to care for Gigi for the next 16 to 18 years, my answer unequivocally would have been YES. 

I had wanted a kitten to make me feel better. I had expected to have a companion for many years. What I got was a very special cat that touched my life in a way I never imagined. 

I learned an invaluable lesson from Gigi that sometimes life gives us what we need in a completely different way than we anticipate. She came to me when I needed her the most. Anyone that knew her said she was very special. My friend who helped care for her said she had changed her life permanently. The veterinarians I worked with said she was a once-in-a-lifetime medical case. Although her time with me was short, her life was a miracle. 

Three months after Gigi passed, I got another Facebook message, this time with a picture of two kittens from the same momma cat that needed a home. I ended up adopting one of them while my friend who helped care for Gigi took in the other one. Simon is 2 years old now and all of the mischief and trouble a young cat can be! He wakes me up every morning, nearly trips me while zooming around hoping I’ll notice him, endlessly torments his older sister (the one who likes to romp in the yard) and LOVES his mouse toys. I see the same familiar spark in his eyes that Gigi once had. He has her essence. I hope that wherever she is, she is living the life of adventure she was always meant to. 

After 19 years in the Veterinary field, Ashley discovered her passion for how much words matter. She is now pursuing a career in Professional Communications.

I hadn’t listened to Sinéad O’Connor for many years, until today. That voice calls for strong lyrics. A lyric that spits out the truth and hurls it in your face. A lyric like The Times They Are a-Changin’. 

This morning I scrolled through images and videos of her early work and the infamous 1992 SNL ripping up of the Pope’s picture. People do all sorts of stuff for publicity, but that wasn’t Sinéad O’Connor. When needed, she delivered a truth which only in the last few years caused an earth-shaking admission by “the church:” moral turpitude dressed up in the religious cloaks of shepherding in many denominations. Those abused children grew up and some found a voice. But how many didn’t or couldn’t?

In 1966 I taught myself to play guitar. It gave me a voice on the University of Tennessee campus and a coffeehouse nearby while I was still in high school. I teamed up with a boy a couple years older who introduced me to Peter, Paul and Mary, Pete Seeger, Joan Baez, and of course, the songs of Dylan. What a time it was. And I felt the fire of injustice that I heard in those voices. 

But somewhere in the next few years through my college years and on to NYC then Nashville, my fire dimmed and I found myself fighting the oppression of my distinct and authentic voice in the songs foisted upon me by the Nashville music machine of the 1970’s. I now fully understand the ache in the gut and depression that comes with not speaking your truth. 

My truth was smothered as a recording artist, then further boxed in by a detour down the rabbit hole of religion. And climbing out of the pit both put me in, literally took decades. But even then, I didn’t understand how the roots of self-suppression finally caused me to become seriously ill. The emotional body supports the physical body. When we break, the cracks may not be visible, but they’re straining to burst through the walls that we’ve girded ourselves with. Eventually, peace is all that’s important. And I found mine.

Untimely death. What does that mean? Maybe Sinéad O’Connor needed peace more than living another day in this world. Maybe she had journeyed far enough and the weight of her son’s passing made each minute feel like years. Whatever her reason, the strength and pure rawness in her delivery of The Times They Are a-Changin’ will forever reverberate in the bones of all who aspire to the courage of Sinéad O’Connor. 

Sherry writes music, true stories with humor, fictional novels, and how-to guides to help clients move past illness to health and beyond. Sherry’s website: Re-Group

I confess. I am one stubborn human. Why it still surprises me that it takes a darn village of Spirit peeps to get my attention is a head shaker. But here it is. Another huge head shaker. 

I have these pesky physical symptoms that are chronic. (Hate that word, chronic. How ‘bout “ongoing” symptoms.) They’ve been around so long that they have become a part of my every day, my existence, the person I recognize as me. 

Too often I find myself tooting along hedging my bets, playing around with and attempting to “redefine” the actual truth of what I know will heal the pain. Or moving past the moments of depression and  downright exhausting thoughts of what it will take to turn the ship that is my human body, around. 

But at some point I have to admit that I’m way off track. My food choices have gradually steered away from highly nutrient dense light-filled fresh food, mostly plant-based eating, and gone the way via that slippery slope down, down, down into bad food oblivion and liver oppression. (“Yes!” answers my liver.) 

Soon I’m eating like an out of control pseudo vegan teenager. “A few gluten free tiny little cookies won’t hurt” until I find myself finishing the entire box. “Bread? Well it’s organic…” or “I had tons of fresh organic veggies most of the day, so I’m sure that will balance out the chocolate chip organic ice cream calling to me from the freezer.” Uh-huh. Sure. Right. 

I am now in full organic balancing rationalization, sliding down that slope grabbing ham and cheese with mayo to slap on that organic bread. Dreaming of just one more bag of NON-GMO Project Verified Boulder Canyon Potato Chips with Sea Salt (but it’s a healthy choice…) while wondering what the flavor of the day is at the frozen custard joint down the road (totally off the rails now).  

I keep trying to convince myself of the smidge of nutritional value in this ridiculous load of…stuff…until I can no longer ignore the direct correlation between my eating habits, my internal beliefs that keep the rationale stoked, and the undercurrent of whining that usually accompanies the ride down the slope. “I’m soooo tired of trying so hard all the time. I deserve some small treat every once in a while!” Waa. Waa.

Then…something terrible happens. A physical event that is so obvious that it can no longer be ignored. So in my face, I can’t reason it away as being “a part of the blueprint of my human path that I put into place before birth.” (That, BTW, is just another opportunity for slip sliding once again into physical hell. Another blog, another time.)

And BOOM! It happened. I was brought down, literally stopped in my tracks, by a blown up severely inflamed right big toe joint so painful that walking on it was impossible. The pain was unbearable. It looked like I was one inch away from a foot amputation. Not kidding. It was bad.

Now, I’m pretty well informed and regularly help other folks in recommending self-help remedies in acute situations until they can schedule a doctor visit. Why I couldn’t seem to get a clear answer for myself as to what would cause this much pain in so short a time was deeply troubling. The only aggravating factor I could point to was an usually long Saturday afternoon walk around the neighborhood. I knew my toe wasn’t broken because nothing had occurred which could possibly have caused a broken bone. Truth is, I became so focused on the pain that I was missing the answer entirely.

My go-to self-help tools were only providing very short term relief. I racked my brain trying to figure out why my foot was beginning to look like a seriously venomous spider had somehow bitten me without leaving a mark. By 4 am Sunday morning, I was desperately trying to wrap my foot with an ice pack for any tiny measure of numbing relief.

After a few hours of spotty sleep, I began to notice that trying to walk greatly aggravated the foot. Would resting it help? It did not. By late Sunday evening all my medical intuitive skills/tools and every bit of my resolve caved to the pain and off to the ER I went. 

After an x-ray to rule out a broken toe, the ER doc came back and announced he thought it was gout. Gout?! My response to him was “Oh hell no.” In the recesses of my so-called mind, the word gout will forever remind me of this factoid: the English King, Henry VIII, had horrible gout. Of course those people ate loads of meat and did ‘God only knows what else’ that caused all manner of disease. And then my brain lit up…

Yes, I thought (hand to the forehead). Severe inflamed arthritic joint where the blood is pooling and depositing poisons forming crystals. Oh…why did I not see this coming. A quick search through some Medical Medium info to confirm, and I understood exactly why this physical event happened. I had overloaded my beleaguered liver once again!

The pre-acute symptoms had been there for some time, and my refusal to acknowledge the trajectory of where they were headed was so wrong-headed and just downright stupid that I was shamed by my stubbornness. But acute pain will make the arrogant beg for mercy. And I did just that.

Ten days of Prednisone took care of the acute inflammation, and I vowed to increase my already revised diet (which I have done) to make sure it would not happen again. And to my great surprise (duh, duh, and duh again!) I almost immediately started feeling much better. 

I’ve had a veritable plethora of medications over the last 30 years, and so I usually avoid them like the plague. However, meds can be life-saving and in this instance, that steroid got me back on my feet and for that I’m grateful. The prednisone took down the inflammation and gave me enough steroid “feel good” to help me get organized as to food and supplement choices for long term changes. If I stop overloading my liver with food/toxins it no longer has the ability to take care of, the downstream effect will be positive as well.

Now mind you, I’ve had several major surgeries (one was heart bypass) and decades of overall pain along with chronic headaches, but all had improved dramatically until I allowed myself to backslide and lose my momentum. And like too many people, I had to be brought down once again to pay proper attention to the numerous signs from my body and from my Spirit peeps that I was about to bite the dust. 

Not sayin’ this episode will cure me of every bit of over rationalizing, of which I am a champion player. But this brutal refresher of what severe acute pain from which I can get no relief feels like, will certainly help. And my liver will once again be my friend.

Sherry writes music, true stories with humor, fictional novels, and how-to guides to help clients move past illness to health and beyond. Sherry’s website: Re-Group

(This piece originally appeared on my old site, Volume Treble Bass, on May 16, 2015… just a few days after B.B. had passed away. September 16, 1925 – May 14, 2015)

The world has lost a true legend…B.B. King has passed away at the age of 89. Riley B. King, known to the world as B.B. King, passed away late Thursday night in Las Vegas according to his daughter, Patty King.

When I started playing guitar 29 years ago, I was into hard rock and heavy metal. I didn’t care anything about listening to blues or jazz or any of that stuff. People would tell me, “But the stuff you’re listening to is based in the blues.” I thought they were nuts! Then as I started getting more into technique, I started to really appreciate players with great vibrato. I’d read interviews with some of my favorite guitarists and when the subject of vibrato would come up, without fail the first name they would mention would be B.B. King. So, I gave in and asked a friend of mine which album should I check out.  He suggested, Live At The Regal.

It was like a light switch had been flipped on! I had been chasing after the “play as many notes as you possibly can” dream, and it was then that I realized that you don’t have to play 1,000 notes if you can say it all with one or very few. Some people can make a guitar talk, but B.B. could carry on a conversation with his. Just listen to “Sweet Little Angel” from Live At The Regal: 

I dove in head first after that. Now, I LOVED his studio recordings, but his live stuff was where it’s at! I mean, we’re talking about a guy that honed his chops by playing 250 + nights a year! So a short while later, I picked up his Live In Cook County Jail album. I can’t believe I got this far and haven’t mentioned his singing. What a perfect compliment to his guitar playing. So soulful. Listen to B.B. wail both on guitar and vocals on “How Blue Can You Get?” from that album:

Some twenty-five years later during the first year as host of my radio program, T-Bone’s Prime Cuts, I’m interviewing Robin Trower when the subject of vibrato comes up. Now as rock guitarists go, Robin Trower has incredible vibrato. I asked him where it came from. B.B. KING! He even mentioned the Live At The Regal album. Made me so happy to see that two of my favorite guitarists had that connection. That Robin had felt the same things I had.

Through the years, I tried to throw a few “BBisms” into my playing. Though never anywhere near as good as B.B., when someone would come up to me after a show and tell me that I had “good vibrato,” I couldn’t be happier.  And I’d tell them “It’s all B.B.!”

Seeing B.B. King play live was a special experience. No matter where you were sitting in the crowd, it seemed as though he was singing directly to you. An incredible storyteller who just had that ability to connect with people.

I was lucky enough to see B.B. live on four different occasions. Three times at Pine Knob (now DTE Energy Music Theater) in big Blues Festival show, and once at the historic Masonic Temple in downtown Detroit. All four times in the 1990’s. And I also had the privilege to meet him once. He was doing book signings in 1996 for his book, “Blues All around Me: The Autobiography of B. B. King.” I don’t normally get nervous meeting celebrities, but all bets were off that night!

By the time I got through the long, winding line at Borders Books in downtown Ann Arbor, my nervousness had reached a fever pitch. I had brought a camera to hopefully get a picture with him but had arrived later than I had planned, so my friends had already been through the line and left. I asked the guy behind me if he’d take the picture in exchange for me taking a picture of him with BB and mailing it to him later. Happily, he agreed.

After B.B. signed my book and gave me a guitar pick, it was time for the picture. The guy taking the photo said, “Don’t forget to smile!”  Then B.B. looks over at me and starts singing…SINGING TO ME, “When you’re smiling, keep on smiling. The whole world smiles with you.” An unforgettable memory! He was so nice to me. And that’s a memory I will take to my grave. Unreal!

Initially, this post was going to be a little history of the man, a rundown of his accomplishments, who he influenced, etc. Then as I started to write it, I was overwhelmed by just how much he had meant to me, so I went with that. There are tons of stories out there today with all of his history and background since his death, but this was personal to me. Hope you didn’t mind.

B.B., I’ll miss you. I feel like I lost a family member. Thanks for all the great music and for being an even better person. And thanks for being so nice to someone you didn’t have to… me. Love you and hope you’re having fun playing Lucille in Heaven!

I’ll leave you with this: my favorite version of “The Thrill Is Gone” live in Africa 1974 (before the Foreman – Ali fight):

Terry “T-Bone” Mathley, currently the host of the podcast, T-Bone’s Prime Cuts…On The Other Side, was previously the host of T-Bone’s Prime Cuts on WICR-FM in Indianapolis, and part of the promotion team for Daryl Hall and John Oates, Steve Cropper, The Doobie Brothers and G.E. Smith.

So you say, “But what about facts?” 

Okay. Fact: I’m a woman. Fact: I have green eyes, a mouth, nose, ears, etc. But honestly, just about everything else about me will vary according to the viewer. Perspective is everything. Different people throughout my life would say I’m a musician. Others remember me as an interior decorator or designer. Some would say I’m kind. But others have said I’m arrogant. All would say I’m very creative. But it’s only their perspective in looking at a small snippet of my life. 

Am I sick and tired of talking and thinking about what TRUTH is? YES! This world is eaten up with the crazy and ridiculous (from my perspective). Many of these people are simply louder than most of us. So why on earth would we take a backseat to the noise that sounds like the screeching of a blackboard subjected to chalk in the hand of yet another nutcase? They’re just noise! But like all bullies, they put the fear in us, that’s why. 

Fear permeates and drives this world right now. And whatever we focus on becomes the basis for making almost every decision from the ordinary to the extra-ordinary. From our parents placing their fears on us, to the real fear of dying by gun violence. So what’s the answer? Let’s talk about power.

I have the ability, available to all who choose to develop it, to connect with a source of wisdom and information that exists in another realm. Call it what you will. Doesn’t matter to me. I know who I communicate with.

So today after becoming sick and tired of being sick and tired, I tuned in (my meditative way of protecting myself and preparing to receive wisdom and discernment) and asked my source a few questions. The same questions I’ve been asking for a very long time. Here is the conversation I had with my source.

ME: Why am I sick? How can I become healthy? Can I write about something that will clean/clear my energy?

SOURCE: Your solar plexus (chakra) is where most of your back pain shows up. This is a clue. You gave away your power over and over and have been constantly trying to get it back. You created a weakness in the muscles in that area. This is not who you are. But this is who you became. And with each fight as you define it, you lost more power. It was gradually siphoned out of you. Power is not a human attribute, but that of the soul. It can become depleted to the point of no return, which is what you have chosen, because of the paths that you have chosen. 

ME: How do I fix it?

SOURCE: Start again from this point forward. (Forget the past)

ME: Who am I?

SOURCE: You are powerful beyond imagining.

ME: Details please…

SOURCE: I see robes, like those worn by a ruler. Glittering with gold. Why does this matter? This is to give you an image that you can call on in times of weakness. You have been a ruler. You have been the wife of a king, but a ruler in your own right. Whatever you’re experiencing now is not representative of your power.

ME: What does power really mean in that context?

SOURCE: Power is the ability to choose to be open, understanding that you are not defined by every action you have taken, every mistake you have made. 

ME: What is a mistake?

SOURCE: Simply a missed opportunity to advance. What you call a rabbit trail. Your intuition is finely tuned, but your mind chatter drowns out what you know to be true, just, and correct. A very common human trait.

ME: So this is what, or the reality, that I’m focusing on. Can I shift my focus to a healthier experience?

SOURCE: Yes. But define what is healthy for you.

ME: Health: the ability to not be afraid to live life to the fullest. Fear that my health will get even worse has me tied up, afraid to imagine anything different. Because then I’ll have to more fully participate in society. I generally don’t do well around people. Too much energy flying around. Overwhelming.

SOURCE: So writing is your vehicle to participate without participating. But can you connect? Humans need human interaction. So far you’ve only dipped your toe in the water. Time to jump in. 

ME: So how do I develop a way to get my words out there?

SOURCE: It’s coming.

ME: When?

SOURCE: When you speak your truth. Stop being the diplomat. Write exactly what you want to say. There’s plenty more to say. This message is not over. You’ve hidden away most of your life. Alcohol provided cover for too long. Defining yourself with some sort of misdiagnosed mental disorder was cover, a shield. Now illness is your cover.

ME: Okay. I get it. What’s my next move?

SOURCE: Post this conversation.

So I did. 

Sherry writes music, true stories with humor, fictional novels, and how-to guides to help clients move past illness to health and beyond. Sherry’s website: Re-Group

“Hm.” 

Hm. That was it. There was nothing else to say. Soon after, the impassivity of my reaction after hearing that kids, LITTLE kids had just been shot to death at school, hit me. Hm. What a sad and telling moment it was to where we are in society. 

I remember the Columbine High School massacre vividly. At the time in 1999, it was the deadliest mass shooting to occur in a school in decades. I remember watching the news footage of kids running out of the building with their hands folded behind their heads; I remember the interviews they gave about watching their friends get shot right in front of them; I remember the young man who crawled out of the 2nd story library window and fell into the arms of the police officers waiting below. I remember hearing Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold’s names and seeing their faces repeatedly shown in the following days during news reports. 

In the weeks and months after the event I remember the phrase “trench-coat mafia” floating around, shock-rockers like Marilyn Manson being blamed for encouraging violent behavior, hearing that the shooters were bullied and had hung with the kids that wore all black and were labeled “goth.” I remember “Columbine, Friend of Mine” by Jonathon and Stephen Cohen being played on the radio. I remember the question being brought up of should we have metal detectors in schools. I remember that you could no longer make jokes about guns or shooting someone. If you did slip up and make a joke, you were given looks of shame and fear. I remember my Grandma asking me if anyone at my school wore a trench-coat. I remember my Dad asking me if I was scared to enter High School in the fall after what had happened. My answer was no. I was 14 years old and still too young and naive to be able to relate what had happened across the country to my own school. Stuff that was on the news was worlds away from my little corner.  

I remember the dark and sickening feeling I had when hearing about the Sandy Hook massacre in 2012. It was a different feeling than I had had with Columbine. This was a deeper level of horror. It was a higher number of deaths among a younger group of children. It was truly unbelievable. I couldn’t let it sink in the same way Columbine had. I was older and understood a lot more. Events on the news weren’t so far away anymore. I don’t have any children of my own, and events like that one make me not want to. 

Just 11 months ago, my wife, mom and I sat and watched the news for hours the day of the shooting in Uvalde, TX. I talked to a friend about it the next day and said how I couldn’t believe that here we were, 23 years after the Columbine shooting, dealing with the same unbelievably fucked up situation.  

I obviously didn’t mention every single school shooting that has occurred since 1999. We’ve seen the footage of children running out of the schools, being told to look the other way so they wouldn’t see their classmates bleeding to death; we’ve seen footage of devastated parents being detained for trying to run inside the school to rescue their children; we can now watch bodycam footage of the moment the police take down the suspect; we can now watch live streamed footage on social media of people getting shot and killed during a work meeting.

If someone would’ve asked me 24 years ago if things would be different in March of 2023, that somehow something would change to prevent little kids from being murdered while at school, or at the VERY least, make it less likely to happen, I would’ve said ‘definitely!’ In 2012 I would’ve said, ‘surely THIS will open up people’s eyes.’ In 2022… I said that I bet things wouldn’t change one bit. 

And they haven’t. 

In 2023, we have news anchor Joylyn Bukovac describing, as she is covering the Nashville shooting, how she survived a school shooting as a child. We have Louisville mayor Craig Greenberg addressing the family of the victims of the shooting on April 10th disclosing that he himself is a survivor of a workplace shooting. In 2018 there was a shooting in a school district directly next door to where I went to high school. It turns out my mom’s friend’s grandchildren went to a neighboring school of the Covenant School in Nashville. They attended Sunday school and were friends with one of the young girls killed on March 27th. 

In 2023, I am lost for words.

It is becoming the six degrees of shooting survivors in our society. I won’t speak for anyone else. We all have different memories and experiences following major news events. We all have different opinions on gun violence, on politics, on religion. I don’t care about those things. Kids are dying. The horror we saw unfold on April 20th 1999 was only the beginning of a new era. An era that I can’t BELIEVE we are still in. An era in which I am so desensitized to kids STILL dying at school, that I barely bat an eye. 

What the hell are we doing? 

After 19 years in the Veterinary field, Ashley discovered her passion for how much words matter. She is now pursuing a career in Professional Communications.