Beautiful People

I have had the rare opportunity to meet some beautiful people lately. They are not beautiful by the world's standards. Some would say they're raggedy, tattered, old. But this one person in particular is one of the most beautiful people I have ever met. We call him Amber's Angel. He came to her in Subway when she was going through a very difficult time. She felt betrayed, lonely, scared, overwhelmed, anxious, insecure. But he was there. With his deep-set, vibrant blue eyes, his tattered cowboy hat, his wrinkled, weathered skin and his less-than-perfect toothy grin. He brought a smile and a word of encouragement just when she needed it....more than once, and always at just the right time. She told me about him and I knew he must have been sent from God. It was awhile later before I got to meet him. After meeting him, I KNEW he was sent by God. He loves the Lord with all his heart and is in tune to the people around him. He knows when someone is hurting or in need without them even saying a word. I don't think he has much as far as material possessions go but he has something far greater. When you look into his eyes, you see a deepness and a wisdom and a love for people. There's a peace in his life even when he has reason to not be peaceful. A few weeks ago he lost his wife to cancer. He's left alone to raise their down-syndrome son. He's not anxious or flustered. He's calm and at peace because he knows his rest comes from the Lord. He IS a beautiful person.

The other beautiful people I've had the privilege to meet is a sweet, precious couple in their 90's. She recently had a stroke and was in an assisted care facility for awhile but then returned home. The husband has been taking care of her by himself. She's paralyzed on her left side and needs help for things we take for granted....walking, getting dressed, etc. They needed someone to live-in with them to help out. Mostly to help the hubby. He's a farmer, hunter, fisherman and it's very hard for him to be in the house all day long. For someone in his 90's, he's still very active...still drives. He needed to be free to roam about his farm and piddle with his tractors as men do. But he lovingly looked at his wife and said he couldn't put her in a nursing home. She looked back at him and said they didn't want to be apart. They have been married for 71 years! Can you imagine!!! Seventy-one years! I thought twenty-two years was a long time. Wow!

I was telling Frank about them and their seventy-one year marriage and he said we'd get there one day. I didn't take the time to figure out how old we'd be to celebrate our 71st wedding anniversary but simply because he wants that for us puts him right at the top of my Most Beautiful People list. Can't wait to see what he looks like in forty-nine years.

Free Day Update

Well, my free day didn't turn out like I planned at all. Before I even finished the blog my mom called and asked if I wanted to go visit my great aunt. I had actually been thinking about that earlier in the morning, so I jumped at the idea. The desk re-do could wait. (It's still waiting)

I got to spend a few hours with my mom at my great-aunt's house. I always enjoy going there. We swap recipes, look through old photos and if I'm lucky, Aunt Polly with tell stories from another time. I love hearing stories from when my mom was a kid and the things she got into. Polly has some stories to tell and I hope to hear more of them.

That evening, I got to have dinner with my mom's baby sister and my mom's older sister. One lives in Ohio and one lives in Maryland. But both were in WV for the weekend. It was a rare opportunity to get to spend time with them both, so I took advantage of it. One of my cousins and her two boys were there too. Andrew came along. It was a mini family reunion at Ryan's.

After living away from family for twenty years, it's a treat to be able to be a part of things like this. The desk re-do could wait. And it's still waiting. But it's at the top of the list for when I get another "free day".

A Free Day???

There's no such thing as a free day. At first I thought today might be one. Frank is out of town. The kids are home for the weekend but they have their own agenda. Andrew had game night at church last night and will be sleeping most of today to make up for it. Christal will be leaving for work shortly. So, that leaves me to ponder what I'm going to do today. The house is clean...mostly. The laundry is caught up.....mostly. So there's nothing that I HAVE to do today.

However, I have a very long list of things I want to get done. The list includes things like yard work...getting my flower beds ready for winter and cleaning out my garden shed. There's knitting projects....a baby sweater that must be finished before the baby outgrows it and a scarf for the Scarves of Hope contest and a prayer shawl I promised a friend.

My desk area needs re-organized since I got a new computer. The same desk doesn't work as well. The space is awkward with a laptop. And I have papers that need sorted and filed.

There's new recipes I've been wanting to try. And charity projects to sew. Oh, and there's always the photos waiting to be put in scrapbooks. What shall I do????

I think the project that will give me the most satisfaction at the moment is my desk area. It's a space I'm in every day. A space that frustrates me when I can't find the papers I'm looking for. My desk area is My Command Central. It's where financial decisions are made (banking and bill paying). Where social obligations are met (notes, birthday cards, etc). It's where research happens (what's the best laptop on the market). It's where I connect with the world (facebook, email). So, yes! Today, I will re-do my Command Center. I will make it a place of functionality and beauty. Can't wait to get started! Maybe I'll even have some time later to do some of the other projects too. Will let you know how my "free day" turns out.

RIP Colonel Curtis Dan Miller

When we first bought our house, we found a military bracelet hanging from a nail in the attic. It's one of those metal bracelets that were worn when a military member would go off to war. The bracelet has the name of Curtis Daniel Miller on it. We did some research and found out a little about him. Amber wore the bracelet for awhile. I checked for more info on him periodically and prayed for his family. Tonight I found out some more news. Here's his story:


Azle widow can finally lay her Air Force husband to rest
By CHRIS VAUGHN

AZLE -- Above all else, theirs is a love story.

"I love him today as I did when I married him," she said.

They were known as Sue and Dan in the late 1960s and early '70s -- the "for
better" years -- before the "or worse" part emerged and then never went
away.

That March day in 1972 when Maj. Curtis Daniel Miller's plane was shot down
over Laos and he went missing, Sue became Susan.

Sue was just for Dan.

She had hoped, for a long time, that maybe he would call her name again,
that maybe he and his crew had survived the crash and were at a secret POW
camp and that one day Laos and the U.S. would reveal everything to her. She
never remarried, even though he had given her permission in one of those
what-if conversations before he shipped out for Southeast Asia.

But now, after 38 years, the government has given her an answer and
extinguished that one flicker of hope.

The remains of Maj. Miller, uncovered in an excavation several years ago and
identified last year, will be buried this month at Dallas-Fort Worth
National Cemetery on the anniversary of his shoot-down, March 29.

He will receive full military honors, and a quartet of Air Force planes will
roar overhead in a missing-man formation.

Most of Susan Miller's friends and her students in Azle struggle to offer
condolences or congratulations or our-thoughts-are-with-you. And she is
wrestling with her own emotions now that her husband's deployment is finally
over and that she is, in her own mind, a widow.

"I would like some closure," she said, tears streaming down her face. "I'm
tired of grieving."

College sweethearts

Born to a machine shop owner and a nurse in the early summer of 1946, Maj.
Miller grew up in Palacios, a shrimping and tourism town on Matagorda Bay.
He played football for the Palacios High School Sharks, participated in
senior plays and had a mischievous streak.

A Sigma Chi fraternity brother at Texas Tech University and an Air Force
ROTC cadet, he was introduced to Susan Rothrock by her best friend. Soon,
they married.

"He was a junior; I was a sophomore," she said. "I was 19. If my daughter
had told me she was getting married at 19, I probably would have killed
her."

When he graduated from flight training at Reese Air Force Base in Lubbock,
they moved around the country for a few years while he was trained on
fighters, bombers and finally AC-130 Spectres. Spectres were C-130 Hercules
planes modified into high-tech reconnaissance and heavy-duty gunships.

"He could fly just about anything but a helicopter," Susan Miller said.

The couple had their first -- and only -- child, Christy, in 1969, when he
was stationed in San Antonio. He loved children, his wife said, and they had
hoped to "have a passel of them."

"He just had to sit in the nursery and stare at me for several hours," said
Christy Hollerich, who also lives in Azle. "He couldn't help himself."

In summer 1971, Maj. Miller got word that he would deploy to Southeast Asia
to serve with the 16th Special Operations Squadron, based in Ubon, Thailand.

In 1968, the Air Force had begun flying Spectres out of Thailand on missions
to impair the ability of the North Vietnamese to supply their forces in
South Vietnam using the Ho Chi Minh Trail. The missions over Laos were a
"secret war" that the American people knew nothing about.

Before Maj. Miller left, he and his wife went to Acapulco, Mexico, figuring
they deserved a good vacation since their college-budget honeymoon had
involved only a trip to Six Flags Over Texas.

They communicated as best they could for those days. Miller would write
letters almost every day and ship them in a box. Her husband would often
answer with a tape recording. They rarely talked by telephone.

In February 1972, Maj. Miller got a break from his missions and met his wife
in Houston for one week.

"It was like another honeymoon," she said, smiling. "We didn't come up for
air often."

It wasn't hard, though, for Miller to tell that her husband was a different
man. Gone, she noticed, was that fun-loving, goofy side, the one with the
Donald Duck voice he pulled out for Christy's friends.

He told her that he flew early morning missions, that he would take off
around 3 a.m. and try to be off the Ho Chi Minh Trail by dawn when a
lumbering target like the Spectre would make for an easier target.

Other than that, he didn't share much, even about the two Distinguished
Flying Crosses he earned.

"He was so full of life before, but he was a lot more serious when I saw
him," she said.

Just a month later, an Air Force staff car pulled up to her parents' house
in Corpus Christi, where she and Christy were living while he was gone.

"It was early in the morning," she said. "When you see the car, you know
it's bad, but you just don't want to acknowledge it. I wouldn't open the
door. They had to get my dad to open it."

A crash, then silence

Miller's aircraft -- he was the co-pilot -- was shot down by a
surface-to-air missile on March 29, 1972, over southern Laos. Thirteen other
men were aboard. The area was too hostile to attempt a rescue or
investigation.

"It was a pretty hairy time for the gunships," said Pat Carpenter, who
served as a gunner aboard Spectres in 1970 and '71. "Triple A [anti-aircraft
artillery] was a constant threat."

For several years, Maj. Miller's family was consumed with finding out more
about what happened.

Some reports said that the plane crashed in a fireball and that no
parachutes were seen. But some family members had also been told that F-4
Phantom pilots in the area had heard emergency beepers going off in the
jungle, which meant that some survived the crash.

None of the families of the crew had bodies to bury, and neither the Laotian
nor U.S. government had any interest in sharing details of a "secret war."
So all that was left was frustrating silence about whether the men were
alive or dead.

Miller often traveled to Washington, D.C., and became extremely involved in
the National League of POW/MIA Families.

"The Air Force has been good to me, but there were times when we thought we
were hitting a brick wall," she said. "It was extremely frustrating."


Maj. Miller's father, Paul, along with several dozen other relatives of the
missing, journeyed to Laos in 1973 to find information but returned more
discouraged.

"He got within 20 miles of Dan's crash site," Miller said. "Men with machine
guns wouldn't let them go any further. It broke his heart."

Paul Miller died in 1974 of a heart attack.

By the mid-1970s, Miller was tired of the activism and the toll it was
taking. She felt that her daughter needed her, so she took a less public
role in the fight to have the government account for its missing.

Officially, the government declared Maj. Miller dead around that time,
ending some of his wife's benefits. But a declaration is not the same as
proof.

In 1984, Miller was dragged back in time when a reporter for CBS News and a
writer for Soldier of Fortune magazine improbably brought her husband's
wedding ring to her. They had paid $400 to a Laotian man who said he had
found the crash site and taken the ring.

It took them close to a year to trace the inscription -- Forever Love Sue --
to Maj. Miller. The ring wasn't damaged in the least, which only raised more
questions.

"It wasn't dented or charred," Hollerich said. "It was in pristine
condition. They had been telling us the fire at the crash had been hot
enough to burn bones. Well, then the ring is found, and you had to ask
yourself -- how does this happen? It was surreal."

A few years later, the military sent Susan Miller his medical tags --
alerting medics to his allergy to penicillin -- which had been discovered
during an excavation in the mid-1980s.

Finally, last year, the government told her that it had discovered
additional remains at the crash site in 2005 and '06 and began notifying
families as it identified them through DNA analysis. All 14 of the men, the
government says, have been identified.

"With news trickling in over the years, you think you've got a good hold of
it and you're in control," she said. "But then something happens, and the
emotions just come flooding. It's like he went down yesterday and I just got
the news."

'I tried everything in my power'

In a few days, she will get on a plane for Hawaii to escort her husband's
remains back to Texas.

Miller, like the stories about her husband, has her contradictions.

She teaches history to middle school students and has faith and trust in her
government. Yet she will also tell you "I'm not naive" and doesn't believe
that the government has always shot straight with her.

She has never bought the story that Maj. Miller died in the crash.

How or when he died, she doesn't know. She figures she never will. But she
is certain he is gone and, rationally, has known that for many years.

"I know he would have tried to get home to me and his little girl," she
said. "I also know I tried everything in my power to find out what happened
to him."

But what goes on in the head doesn't always communicate with the heart. So
over the years she dated some, even got a proposal or two. But her heart
always told her that she was still married, for better or for worse.

"I couldn't declare him dead," she said. "That had to come from our
government."

CHRIS VAUGHN, 817-390-7547

Tired!

Just tired! It might have something to do with the midnight courier run to Pittsburgh I did last night. Along with the thought of having to do it two more nights in a row. It's not actually a "midnight" run. I leave the house about 8 p.m. and get home about 1:30 a.m. So, it does encompass midnight.

In addition to the courier stuff, I'm doing all the "mama" stuff and "wife" stuff. The stuff that most of you do every day too....laundry, cleaning, grocery shopping, bill paying, dr. appts, cooking, taking care of the indoor pets and the chickens, trying to maintain a flower bed and keep the car somewhat decent. Which reminds me, I think it needs an oil change again. Oh, and add, homeschooling to the list. Did I say I'm tired??? I am. Might just take a nice long nap until about 8 p.m. ZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

The Bag Lady Strikes Again!

I don't know how it happens. A perfectly normal woman with sound financial principles walks into a department store and suddenly she turns into The Bag Lady. Just like Linda Carter who turned into Wonder Woman or Clark Kent who turned into Superman. She turns into The Bag Lady. But unlike Wonder Woman and Superman, she doesn't gain super powers, she loses all common sense. I guess her only redeeming quality is that she has the power to scope out a sale and she never pays full-price. Bags are like kryptonite to her. She becomes weak and vulnerable to the bag. Not any bag, though. It has to be a beautiful bag of high quality. The latest bag that brought her down is this one: A Dooney & Bourke Lucy bag.

Full!

A cute little country home.

Lots of cuddly pets.

Roosters that wake me every morning.

A hubby that loves me enormously.

Children that are awesome!

Friends that I could call on a moments notice.

Family near by.

Church that is amazing.

Small town community.

My life is full...my heart is full. And I am so "great-full" for it all!