Author: Kevin Stone

      I don’t really believe in coincidences. I’m that guy that sees a purpose in pretty much everything. Now, don’t misunderstand me, I’m not the guy who thinks people died in the War on Terror because the United States started letting gay people get married, or the guy that think folks get cancer because of something atrocious they did in their past. Nope. Bad things happen to good people and good things happen to bad people. It’s always been like that. Just because I find a purpose in the bad things (and the good, as well) doesn’t mean I’m being judgy. Judgement is way above my pay grade. No, I just know that there’s a purpose to it all. Keep reading and see if you agree. 

When I was seven I lost my right eye to some type of nerve infection. I’ve spent all of my life since with a prosthetic (glass/acrylic) eye. That was a big deal as a kid, not to mention the trauma it gave my parents. Fast forward to me as a young adult. I wanted to be a soldier more than anything else. I loved everything military. It was my ideal vocation. I talked to recruiters in every branch of the armed forces. No can do, they’d say. There’s a basic requirement. Having two eyes is a must. I tried to get them to let me sign a waiver. Waivers are only for those that lose their eye while they’re serving. My dad put it more bluntly. “They don’t want a one-eyed soldier, son.” Ouch. 

The loss of my eye never kept me from doing anything else. I played football in high school. Not all that well, but I enjoyed it. I swam, water skied, climbed trees (and fell out of them), and did all the stuff a regular kid would do. It was a tough blow to be told I had a disability that would not allow me to do something that I felt so strongly about. It just wasn’t meant to be, however, and I went to college.     

My college career was brief. One year (including two summer semesters) of being a lackluster student who drank too much. Then I started dating Sam. She was back home, in Turrell, Arkansas, and I knew who I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. We got married and spent the next twenty years together, raising our four wonderful children. I have zero regrets. My life has been full of ups and downs, twists and turns. Hardships and pain went hand in hand with the joys and fun stuff. My greatest achievement in life has been bringing those four people into this world and having the opportunity to watch them grow. I still love watching them, even though they’re adults now. We never stop growing. It’s pretty amazing.

If I hadn’t lost that eye, things might’ve been different. I might’ve been a soldier. Maybe not. Sam and I may, or may not, have gotten together. Our four kids, whom I love with all my heart, may, or may not, have been conceived. I’d even say that I may have never met Laura Gail, my beautiful wife of nearly twelve years, if circumstances with Sam had not brought me to Tennessee. When I say that everything has a purpose, I mean it. I’m glad that the Good Lord has a plan. I’m even happier that he doesn’t share all the details of that plan with us. We’d just think He was nuts. I see now, fifty two years after losing my eye as a little boy, how all of those situations and circumstances brought me to be exactly where I was meant to be. I’m grateful to the Man Upstairs for getting me here. I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.  

God bless y’all! 

      It was a Tuesday when I discovered that I am in the age category “Old”. Last Tuesday. February 27, 2024. It’s not an easy realization, but I was forced to look at the evidence and, yes, I’m now “Old”. 

I’m a housekeeper at a rehabilitation hospital. I’m a working supervisor, and I’m proud to say I don’t ask anyone to do anything I won’t do myself. Last month was a staffing nightmare, so I was more of a housekeeper than a supervisor, so I cleaned quite a few rooms myself. I’m not complaining, it just be that way some days, ya know?  Well, I had just finished the last room of the day, when I received a request to mop a “sticky” floor. No problem. I pushed my cart, complete with all the accoutrements of the professional housekeeper (broom, dustpan, mop, cleaning chemicals, etc.) towards the room. That’s when it happened. I felt a bubble. In my abdomen. A gurgle, if you will. I thought “no problem. I’ll just wait until after I mop this floor and go to the Little Boys Room and do the necessary thing.”  The room to be mopped was nearby, and the Little Boys Room was just around the corner, so no problem, right? Wrong. 

There were family members saying goodby to the patient when I got there. They’d visited and were on about Stage Two of the proper Southern Goodbye. You know how that goes?  

Stage One: Well, I guess we aughta be headed out. (Then they talk for ten more minutes) 

Stage Two: Y’all take it easy. Tell ya momma ‘n nem we says hello. (Two steps towards the door, then a turn and “Hey, did anybody tell you about (insert weird five-minute story about common friend/family here) 

Stage Three: Okay, then, Bye now! (Visitor may leave now, unless the person they were visiting does their own version of Stage Two, which is most likely) 

So I waited. The bubble in my gut grew just a little, causing pressure in areas that you really don’t want pressure to be. The family finished their goodbyes and said “hello’s and thank you’s” to me as they left. Cool. Now I can mop, which I commence doing. For those of you who have every mopped anything, you know that you generally bend slightly at the waist to get this process done. When I did that, however, the bubble shifted. Hard. It dived six inches to the south and felt like a small balloon when a heavy smoker tries to blow it up. It got bigger, but very slowly. The race was on. I mopped that floor with tenderness and care. The floor got clean as the prospect of me making a mess got more likely. When I say likely, I mean it was only a matter of time. When you know it’s coming, but don’t know exactly when, your anxiety level goes up exponentially. I finished the floor, said my goodbyes, put out my “wet floor” sign, and ran to the bathroom. That’s a lie. I slowly walked, stiff legged, with the two halves of my posterior tightly hugging each other. I was clenched. That was the longest, slowest walk to the Little Boy’s Room I’ve probably ever taken. I inched my way there, all twenty feet, with my one good eye getting blurry and a prayer on my lips. I had to stop twice and stand completely still, to stop the bubble from bursting. I finally made it to the nearest depository, which was inside the nurse’s break room. God help me if it were occupied! My prayers were answered (it wasn’t) and I was able to sit upon the Throne of Necessity and partake of the facilities. If you think the Good Lord don’t answer prayer, I would disagree with every fiber of my being, because that’s exactly what I left there in that little room. Trust me, I had zero fiber left.  

God is good. In the little (but highly important) things, as well as the big ones 

If you think that event was why I’m marking my “Old Man Birthday” on the calendar as February 27, 2024, you’d be wrong. That was only one of many bodily breakdowns that I’ve had since I’ve reached the age of fifty. Oh no, nearly pooping my drawers just sparked the reason I now know for sure that I am actually “Old”. After I succeeded in making it to that special room and leaving a quarter of my body weight behind, I told no less than three of my coworkers what had almost happened. Every detail. One of my housekeepers laughed as I told the tale of how she was almost called to clean up the trail of a brown, smelly, substance that went all the way to the bathroom. I would’ve told more people, but it was quitting time and I wanted to get home to Laura Gail. On the drive home I determined that I’d write this story, because it was as close to a “near-death” experience I’d had in a long time. There was such relief and satisfaction that I’d come so close to the danger zone without failing that I didn’t care who knew. That’s the true mark of an “Old Man”. We don’t care who knows about our flaws. The baldness, the beer gut, the bowed-up walk, they’re all part of getting to the “Old”. You truly know you’re old when you’re so proud of making it to the bathroom that you’ll write about it in the newspaper. So here I am.  

God bless y’all! 

      There’s a lot going on in the world today. Wars are raging. Elections are gearing up. Needless killings are all around us. People are taking extreme views on every subject from abortion to immigration. It seems the world gets more convoluted and confusing every day. Folks are scared of a lot of things. Tolerance can be a virtue, or a vice, depending on how you use it. We spend a lot of time on what others are doing, or not doing, in their lives and overlook the imperfect lives we live. I just wanted to remind y’all of a few hard truths today. 

One: Don’t elect people who are so arrogant that they seem to have the answer to everything. That’s a dictator. They’re bad. Elect folks who ask you what’s important. They’re the ones who will work hard for you. If you can find them.  

Two: Have conversations about problems. No one has all the answers. We can all bring something to the table. If politicians spend all of their time impeaching each other, when will they have time to work together to solve our problems? 

Three: The media isn’t the public. Talk to each other, to understand each other’s problems. Put yourself in another person’s shoes. See issues from different perspectives.  

Four: Vote on your convictions. If everyone that could vote, did vote, we’d have a better country, hands down. 

Five: Government doesn’t have all the answers. They are simply organized people who are trying to make things better, ideally. We, as individuals, have to do most of the hard work ourselves. Erbody needs to be adults, when you’re an adult. Don’t expect the government to do the job you’re supposed to do for yourself. 

Six: Empathy, love, and compassion are needed in society. How we talk to each other and treat each other needs to reflect what our values aspire to be. If we really want to help people, then that’s what we should do. Each of us. Every day. 

Maybe I’m ranting. Maybe I’m naive. It’s just my opinion, and I felt like sharing it.  

God bless y’all! 

     The years passed while we weren’t looking. Each day brought new people, new joys, and new experiences. We went to work a lot. We read new, and old, books.  We watched movies evolve into CGI and AI marvels of technology that brought our childhood stories to life. We paid bills. We were late with some. We worked some more. There were new jobs with old problems and headaches. We grew older. In some ways we got more mature and settled. In other ways, we returned to our dark, sarcastic, selves when we felt the need. On and on, for twenty years, we lived our lives, every day, because that’s what you must do. At some point during each of those days we thought of you, Sam, and what our lives would’ve been like, had you been here to share it. Every day. And we missed you. Every day. 

     Cynthia “Sam” Stone was a tornado of a person. She was rarely quiet, in voice or mind. She was intelligent, witty, creative and possessed a beautiful soul. I met her in Mrs. Speigle’s Fourth Grade class and I’m pretty sure I loved her from the moment I laid my eyes on her. She was the “smart kid” and the “vocal kid” and the “hand-raising kid” that soaked up school, and learning, like a sponge. She was competitive, too. Being first was the only thing to be. Coming in second wasn’t an option. She was fierce and unashamed. And she had long pigtails and beautiful green eyes. I didn’t stand a chance. 

     Our four children, Chris, Candice, Micheal and Timothy, had a mom that played with them. She did crafts, came up with games, and loved to teach them as they played. She could be silly and messy and enjoy being in the moment with them. Her children were her crown. She loved everything about them. She home schooled them all, and never tired of teaching them, even after they started going to public school. She kept learning, right along side of them.  

     Sam never met a stranger. There were people who were her friends, and people she hadn’t met yet. She could find something in everyone to love. I’m grateful she found something in me to love. I wouldn’t be the same man today, had she not been such a big part of my life. She was my first love, and the mother of my four beautiful children. She was my whole world for nearly twenty years. Then she was gone. 

     February 19th of this year marked the twentieth year that has passed since she left this earth. We’re crossing the threshold of having more time after her passing, than we had with her, and it’s still surreal. A lifetime has passed and the feeling that she should still be here has never gone away. All the things we will ever do, she will have to watch from heaven. All the people that we wish she could meet, like her grandsons Sammy and Ian, she cannot. It’s up to us to tell them about her. It’s like trying to describe a beautiful painting by a famous artist. You have to be there to feel the intesity and the vibrancy of it’s reality. Such was the person that Sam was. You had to be there.  

     I live without regrets. There’s no purpose to them. I try to make good decisions, and live them out. We all must. My life is good. My wife, Laura Gail, holds my heart and is my life. God has blessed us. I love the people my kids have become, and I know Sam is proud of them, too.  There will never be a day that goes by that I won’t think of her, because I see her in each of them. They shine. They are her crown.  

Cynthia “Sam” Stone 

July 28, 1965 – February 19, 2004 

If you find a woman that loves you, love her back. 

 When she trusts you, always remember to be worthy of that trust. Mate for life and live for your mate. Be yourself and give your mate the right to do the same.  

Speak the truth, love. Be kind. Be gentle.  

Protect one another. Stand beside one another. Be on their side, always.  

Say “I love you” a lot and mean it. Enjoy their quirks and faults as much as their beauty and strengths. Find things in common, even when you have to look hard.  

 Be the person they think of first.  

Don’t touch the thermostat. 

Keep a sweater and hat handy. 

Know where the space heater is at all times. 

Never hesitate when they need a spider killed. 

 Let them go first to the good things and be ahead of them when they have to suffer through the bad things.  

Never talk down to each other.  

Include them in your favorite things unless they hate it, then don’t judge them for not being you.  

Be interested in their day.  

Don’t ask why she likes “murder your husband” shows…she just does. 

Sing with her. 

Find her bad hair day attractive. 

 Do the romantic thing even if she says she doesn’t want you to. 

 Never fall for the line “I don’t want anything for my birthday/Christmas/anniversary”- everyone loves a gift from the heart.  

Accept their family as your family and love them accordingly.  

Share everything, even the bad stuff. 

 Love them, even if they’re being unlovable. 

 Don’t break her heart.  

Be the person she can always count on. 

Laura Gail, will you be my Valentine? Pretty please? 

Happy Valentine’s Day, Y’all! 

    My Dad preferred the metal twist-o-flex watch bands. I can still see him, in my mind, fiddling with the one on his wrist. He’d stick the index finger of his right hand into it and give it a twist. Maybe he’d pull it just a bit and let it snap back onto his wrist. I’m not sure if it qualified as a nervous tick, but he’d do it while he was talking to someone and I don’t think he was even aware he was doing it. He seemed to always wear a watch. Back in his day, it was a necessity. You wanted to be on time, you wore a watch. Being on time was important. You didn’t want to be late for an appointment, an interview, or a date. It was a sign of respect. Seems like nowadays everyone makes excuses for being late to everything. We carry around a phone that connects to the world wide web and can access time zones all over the planet, set an alarm, give directions to anywhere, call an Uber to take us there, but we’re still late. “Overslept” they’ll say, then look at you like “whatcha gonna do?”. As if to say that’s an excuse. Sigh.

    I remember my first watch. Mickey Mouse, with the white gloved hands for the minute and hour hands. Red leather watch band. I still have it somewhere in a box. It hasn’t worked in years. I still remember wearing it, although I don’t think I had anything to be late for back during my kindergarten years. It’s a good idea for kids to know the value in keeping up with the time. The concept is getting more elusive the more technologically advanced our society gets. We have knowledge, entertainment, weather, directions and communications on, twenty four-seven, around the clock. It’s always there. Until it’s not. Let your phone die when you most need something from it. See how useful they are then.

    There’s something to be said for a device that’s dedicated to one thing. A watch is there to show you what time it is. That’s it. It can make a fashion statement, or not. A grown man can wear a Mickey Mouse watch or a Rolex, but they’ll both tell him what time of the day it is. There’s a beauty in that. My Dad usually wore Timex brand watches. They were modest, even cheap, watches that were good, solid time pieces. When he passed away twenty years ago, my mother gave me a couple of his watches, including the one he’d worn last. It was a 1990’s Timex Indiglo. The kind you can push the stem button and it’ll light up the clock face with that greenish light. The plastic cover is scratched up a bit, and it had a gold twist-o-flex band. I discovered that the hair on my wrist kept getting caught in the band, whether I twisted it, or not, so I changed it out with a watch Laura Gail got me for Christmas years ago. I don’t think my dad had less hair on his wrist than I do, but he was definitely a tougher guy than I am. He must’ve lost all the hair around his wrist from all that twisting and popping. Ouch. I wear the watch every Sunday, to church. It’s my way of using something he left me to remember him. I love that old watch. I’m still a little late to church sometimes. Overslept, ya know?

    This week my sister, Pam (Stone) Portefield, turns sixty-three. She’s a breast cancer survivor, and fighter, a mom of Joey, Megan and Kerry, and Nana to Mylie and Peyton. She’s been my oldest big sister for my entire life, and a constant source of inspiration and dark, sarcastic humor for me to draw upon. She’s a former respiratory therapy nurse, retired staffing specialist, and currently showing me how to keep living the good life. She strives to experience all that life has to offer, and still make fun of it (and me) along the way. I aspire to be more like her every day. I know there are days when she’s hurting, and sick. I know that feeling good sometimes has to be a frame of mind, if not a physical reality. She makes it work, even when it hurts. She taught me how to be a connoisseur of books and reading. She even finds time to send me corny Dad joke puns pretty much on a daily basis. She’s a pretty big deal. She’s one of my heroes. My Dad left more than an old Timex behind that can “take a licking and keep on ticking”. Her name is Pam. Happy Birthday, Sis! May your day be full of the people, and things, that you love. You can never really be late, when you live in the “now”. That’s you.

P.S.

    I’ll get that book back to you, asap. I read a lot slower than you do. I just need a little more time. (insert smirky grin here)  

   “I can feel it in my bones.” It’s an old saying that the old folks use when they “feel” something about to happen, has happened, or won’t happen. Or we use it when we simply feel our bones going brittle and hurting. Yeah, I said “we”. I feel it in my bones, too. My late fifties have opened my one good eye to the slow realization that I am slowly, painfully, becoming the “elder” generation. I was recently in the “older” generation, but that seems to have passed. I am the “Old Man” now.

    My daddy passed on the 24^th of January, 2004. Twenty years ago. I still can’t believe he’s gone. I see him in my mind, and hear him every day. His deep voice telling me “keep getting up, brush it off” and “rub some dirt on it, you’re okay” echos every time I feel like quitting. I look down at my big hands, rough and calloused from years in factory work, and I see his hands. Mine are smaller than his, but I see the resemblance. He was a big man, both in my mind and in real life. He made a mark on all of us kids, his grandchildren, and everyone who knew him. He left a big hole in our lives when he left. Our memories can only cross that gap, it can’t fill it. He was loved. He is missed.

    I’m not half the man he was, but I try to emulate him in a lot of ways. I know I can’t be him, because I’m me. The person I am is flavored by what he gave me, though. I hope to be, in my children, and grandchildren’s eyes, at least a fraction of the man I perceive my dad to have been.

Wayne Stone 1939-2004      Pop, we love you.

God bless y’all.

      Stuff. I’ve got a lot of stuff. Some of its pretty good stuff. Some of it’s not. I’ve been needing to go through it and get rid of the latter, but I have emotional issues when making the decision which is stuff, and which is junk. I’m not a hoarder, at least I don’t think I am. Okay, maybe I am, but my hoard is small when compared to a clinically diagnosed person with a hoarding disorder. That being said, I may have about 40 percent of my overall possessions that can be qualified as “junk”. That’s a high proportion. I think I have to take action. 

      We all accumulate stuff in our lives. Whether or not we hang onto it is a matter of personality and necessity. Sentimentality varies from person to person. As they say, one man’s trash is another man’s treasure. Especially if one of those guys is a hoarder. There are times when we just let our intentions run amok. Enjoying farm animal curios is fine. Two hundred of them, scattered throughout your house, that’s ridiculous. Photos are great. Every family should have them around, on the wall or in albums. Everyone loves looking at old pictures of you, and your loved ones, in a bygone era. Trunks of albums, boxes of thousands of photos, and ten dozen eight by tens on the wall might be overkill. There has to be a limit, ya know? 

      I like to collect comic books. I have a couple of plastic bins of them. No problem. I like old action figures. I have at least a full box of them. So far, so good, right? I hesitate to say how many books I own, because I’m not really sure. Maybe a couple of hundred. Could be more, but hey, books are a good thing, right? Put those things together and you start to fill a room. I’ve done that already. We won’t mention the nick-nacks, doo-dads, neat wooden boxes, and even a couple of cool sticks. Yeah, I said sticks. Don’t be judgy. I’m aware I have a problem. My wife told me it’s okay. So long as I keep it in my “office”.  And the shed. And just where she doesn’t look. Because it drives her a little crazy.  

      See, she’s a lot less sentimental than I am. If she hasn’t used it, and doesn’t rationally think she’ll use it soon, she will just up and throw it away. Can you believe that? Me neither. I mean, somebody might need an old gorilla-shaped coin bank, carved out of a coconut, that someone you don’t really know got on vacation ten years ago. It doesn’t matter if it doesn’t have a plug on the bottom to keep the coins from falling out, it’s still neat. Ugly, but neat. Right? We disagree about such things. I’m usually wrong, but that hasn’t stopped me from finding even neater stuff to collect dust in my “office”. Yes, my “office” is a room full of junk and books. I don’t even write in there or do the bills. Laura Gail won’t go in there, so long as nothing stinks and she’s not asked to get anything out of there. I think she loves me. 

      I guess what I’m saying is that I intend to find a better balance between my stuff and my junk, this year. Y’all wish me luck. 

God bless y’all! 

    It’s a new year. Customarily considered a time to make a fresh start at all the things you wish to change in your life, or to introduce new experiences into it. We sang Auld Lang Syne, kissed at midnight, and partied to end the old year, then passed out happily with visions of a new dawning in our dreams. Personally, I just stayed up till 2 am after watching “It’s a Wonderful Life” by myself (Laura Gail went to bed at ten thirty, like a grown up), then felt wonky all the next day. C’mon, folks, let’s face it: the New Year’s thing is simply an arbitrary calendar event. It’s a man-made event made “special” simply by being the end of one numerical series, followed by the beginning of another one. We’re just marking time.

    We make “New Year’s Resolutions” to do, or not do, all sorts of things. Lose weight, quit smoking, write the Great American Novel, or get muscles by going to the gym. Poppycock! If you wanted to do any of that, you’d do it. The calendar hasn’t a thing to do with it. If you have need of a starting line, an audience to cheer for you, and a finish line for your passions and goals, then by all means start on January First. I suppose that’s as good a time as any. Just know that time doesn’t work that way. Not even close.

    Time doesn’t care about the ticking of a clock. It doesn’t watch for a new day dawning with the sun. Time doesn’t even track the earth through it’s path around the sun. Time really doesn’t even blink when our earthly seasons change over and over again. No, time concerns itself with much bigger things than a numerical stamp, a date calculated and expressed by mathematicians from long ago, sands through an hourglass, or which paleantological era we consider ourselves in. It’s the Cenozoic (“new life’), or “age of mammals”, if you care to know. That’s what the geology buffs call it. I personally like to just call it “Now”. I think Time doesn’t care about all of the geological, astrophysical, or atmospherical aspects of recording time. I think Time has more important things to note, as it flies on by. Let’s see if we can examine just a few.

    Seeing your child born into this world. Hearing that baby cry for the very first time. Listening to the Universe’s greatest music: a baby’s laughter. Feeling the love in a child’s hug when he wraps you up in his arms. The fresh, honest smell of a sleeping, trusting child against your chest as he sleeps and dreams. The sound of first steps taken. The first conversation you have with a little human learning to talk. The feeling of pride in your soul while you watch him grow. Every single moment you are there to see that child live, learn and love is fleeting, but powerful. They are the most real moments of time you will ever experience. Those are the ones your heart keeps. Time smiles at you for a moment, then moves on.

    Time watches us lose people that we love along our way, too. The souls in our lives that leave this plane of existence and breathe no more are etched into our hearts the moment they are gone. We know that forever and eternity are far from us, until the day one of our loved ones go off to meet it in person. They leave a part of themselves with us, but never enough. We mourn and remember them, but Time moves on. I believe it sheds a tear for them, but it moves on, nevertheless.

    The only Time that truly exists is Now. You can only remember the past, it’s gone forever. The future can’t be glimpsed, or counted on. You can only exist in the Now. January First comes again next year. Don’t wait for it. The clock only ticks until the spring unwinds, or the battery dies. Right Now is your only chance. Enjoy it. Experience it. Use it to it’s fullest. Time waits for no one. You either do something with it, or you lose it. It’s just the way it is.

    Today, take an opportunity to do something new. Something different. Say something nice to a stranger. Be kind for no reason at all. Work on something important to you that you’ve always wanted to do. Put your phone down and listen to someone. Give away something you care about to someone else who may need it. Tell a corny joke to a child, or an adult. Be nice to a mean person. God loves them, too.

    Time is fair to everyone, but makes no excuses for being late, or early. We all live in the same part of it: Now. If you must have a resolution to express this year, then I have a suggestion. Resolve to live the fullest life you can in the moment. One moment at a time. Once Time passes, it’s too late. Do it Now.

    God bless y’all.

    Gma gave me a home. So long as the rent was on time, and I treated her daughter well. She made it easier by charging me 1980’s rates, and having a daughter that doesn’t put up with any crap.

    She was a living example of someone that loved you by being honest with you and requiring you to be honest with her. She judged your character by simply listening to you, and watching what you did. That’s also how she showed her love: by what she did. Gma helped just about every member of her family at one time or another. Many others, who may not have been family by blood, were treated as family and shown that same brand of love.

    Ethel taught us all that if you want something in life, and are willing to sacrifice, and work hard, you can do it. She expected that from others, because that’s exactly how she did it. Simple as that.

    Personally, I knew she loved me when she trusted me to cut our yards with her beloved John Deere riding mower, aptly named “Ethel”. It will forever bear her name on the hood. She loved making her yard look nice. She enjoyed being outside, in the fresh air, and getting things done “her way”. She spent over three decades working at Porter Cable, in Jackson, and hard work was part of her character. It wasn’t until the past few years that she had not been able to do some of the work she held so dear, as she passed into her seventies. She still held onto the role of supervisor, and I was sure to hear about any shortcuts she noticed me taking in the lawn care. Nobody could do it like Gma did it. It would’ve taken a crew of six people to get it done right. Like Gma did it.

    She taught me that when life gets tough, we just have to straighten up and walk right. Just like she did.

    Thank you, Gma, for everything. We will hear you in our heads every day, for the rest of our lives, and I’ll be proud to listen. And I’ll try to walk right. I love you, Gma.

    Ethel Mae Franks Parker

    August 22, 1946-December 26, 2023

    Ethel Mae Franks Parker was born on 8/22/46 in Collinswood, TN to the late Ralph and Lillie Mae Franks.

    She was proceeded in death by her husband, Max Parker and a brother James Franks.

    She is survived by daughters Donna [Mike] Trull, from Albany Ga. And daughter Laura [Kevin] Stone, from Humboldt Tn, sister Kathy [Larry] Erwin from Lavinia, TN, brother John Jr [Brenda] Franks from Medina, TN and Hobert Franks from Medina, Tn.

    She had 5 grandsons Jon [Tasha] Murphy, from Denver CO, Cody [Connie] Bishop from Gibson, TN, Joseph [Franklin] Trull from Albany, Ga, Matthew Trull from Albany, Ga and Tyler [Robin] Trull from Manchester, Connecticut. She had one great grandson Cayde Stone Bishop, from Gibson TN.

    She left a multitude of nieces, nephews and bonus grandchildren and great grandchildren that she loved very much.

    She was known by many names…Gma, Sissy, Cornelia and Nellie.

    Ethel accepted Jesus Christ as her lord and savior as a young child at Latham’s Baptist Church. Later she became a member of Smyrna Baptist Church.

    She retired from Porter Cable after more than thirty years of service. She was a loyal member of the Porter Cable Retiree Group and rarely missed their monthly meals together. Ethel loved fellowship with her old coworkers and friends.

    Ethel Parker (Gma) made my life better in many ways. First and foremost, by giving me Laura Gail. She raised a woman that won my heart by being strong, self-sufficient, opinionated, with a unique sense of humor and a strong work ethic. In all of those ways, she is just like her mother.

    Her work ethic was unparalleled, and I believe it’s fair to say that hard work was a big part of her own “love language”. She believed that a job worth doing was worth doing right.

    Before, and after, retirement, Ethel loved to be outside working in her yard and growing flowers.

    She loved everyone and always helped people. Ethel held herself to a high standard and helped raise the standards of those around her. She donated to many charitable organizations.

    She was loved by many and will be greatly missed.