karenjordanwrites.com Blog

Nothing Like a Mother’s Love

Administrator — Mon, 14 May 2012 04:25:10 +0000

Where would we be without our mothers? I shudder to think. I know my life would have been much different and not in a good way.
It is my Mother who has been there for me from the very beginning, helping to guide my steps and keep me from falling. When I was sick as a child (or even under the weather as an adult), she’d nurse me back to health. She’d anticipate my needs (the nurse in her), encourage me when I wasn’t sure of myself, and wipe away my tears when I was down. She is the reason I went to the schools I was blessed to attend and the motivation behind my best decisions. There is truly nothing like a Mother’s love.

When I consider it, one day is really not enough to do mothers justice. I think the idea of Mother’s Day is something that we should carry with us all year long. As I heard a minister say earlier today, whether you feel like your own mother did anything for you or not, the fact that you’re alive and breathing is a testament that she did do something. Love her, cherish her, appreciate her while you have her. And if your mother is no longer around, honor her memory, continue to live her dreams, and may thoughts of her give you peace.

Make Your Own History

Administrator — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 02:38:52 +0000

I love talking to people about history, and I have such a great respect for those who appreciate it. I recently heard someone say that history gives our lives context. I think that is so true. We are not born in a vacuum. People came before us. We can learn from them, their successes and failures. I so often think of my great-grandfather. This is his birthday month. I think of how difficult life was for him early on when he had no money and struggled to pay for his medical education, at the time not knowing how the story would end. Would he succeed?

Our lives are just that way. We go through hardships and pain in life, usually having no clue how we will get out of them. Often, it’s hard for us to see ourselves rising above our circumstances. That’s what it’s like when you’re in the valley. But if you have someone else’s success story to look back on, it can often help you visualize your own success, your own victories. Take the time. Envision yourself achieving your dreams. Don’t give up. You’ll get there.

Remembering Great-Granddaddy

Administrator — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 21:16:39 +0000

I think I’m sad February is over. It was such an exciting month! I was asked to perform twice at the House of Blues Sunset Strip in West Hollywood, California. Ironically, on the same day as my second show on Feb. 23, Georgia resident Gwendolyn Redwine was showing a video I had sent her about my great-grandfather’s life as part of a Black History Month celebration in Newnan. During Black History Month especially, I like to make the most of February by using every opportunity I can to let people know my great-grandfather’s story. The Huffington Post also published a blog I wrote about the impact my great-grandfather’s story had on a high school group I once spoke to in Los Angeles.

March was actually my great-grandfather’s birthday month. This year marks Dr. John Henry Jordan’s 142nd birthday. This year also marked his last year of life 100 years ago. He died tragically in a car accident while on his way to see a patient. My Dad and I were marveling just the other day how amazing it is that people are still remembering my great-grandfather a century after his death. I wonder if my great-grandfather had any idea how his life would impact others these many years later. I devote my life to remembering.

The New Year

Administrator — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 05:50:37 +0000

Yeah, a new year! Out with the old, and in with the new. Isn’t that what Auld Lang Syne is all about?
I’m grateful for it. What did you want to accomplish last year that you didn’t? What regrets do you have
about days gone by? It’s so easy to be fixated on the past. What did you do right? What did you do wrong? Well, you know what?
It’s over! It doesn’t matter now. It’s like a song I heard earlier today, “Yesterday’s gone! I’m moving on…”
Isn’t that a delicious thought?

So even though I am personally against making New Year’s resolutions (they don’t really work now, do they?), how about
we agree to let go of what’s been holding us back and simply keep moving forward. The past is past.

Time is Limited

Administrator — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 01:27:42 +0000

I’ve lost a friend. A woman with so much to live for: a young son, a husband, a loving family. She died just two weeks ago. Dr. Jacqueline Fleming Hampton was one of the strongest women I know. Life is too short. Yet it’s so easy to put things off, to say, “I’ll get to it when I get a chance.” Really? What if that chance never comes? Yet we often spend our lives betting on it.

Once when I was still living in my hometown, I saw someone I knew from high school. We were both in the parking lot of a shopping plaza. I don’t think she saw me. I remember thinking I should have called out her name and said something to her, but I didn’t. Instead, I rushed into the store, too focused on my own agenda for the day. The next time I saw her was from a distance at her funeral. She was lying in her casket. I never had a chance to speak to her, all because I wouldn’t take the time to walk across a parking lot and say hi.

Time is limited. Yet we act like we have so much of it. “I’ll do it later,” we say. “I’ll see them next week.” Who knows if you’ll be around next week? Do it now! I think I’m going to make that my new motto.

Still Mourning

Administrator — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 00:36:12 +0000

It has been 99 years, and I’m still mourning. It was a tragedy of far-reaching proportions that impacted generations of my family: the sudden death of my great-grandfather. He was only 42. A well-known physician and much loved family man, his death was the result of a car accident. It happened in September on a Saturday night. The year was 1912. My great-grandfather, John Henry Jordan, was on his way to a house call in Newnan, Georgia. That was not unusual for him. House calls were the norm at the turn of the century (last century, that is). It was when his car stalled on the way that the trouble began. Thinking that he was being helpful, a bystander walked up to my great-grandfather and lit a match to help him see better in the dark. The problem was my great-grandfather was standing by his open gas tank at the time. It exploded, fatally burning my great-grandfather who miraculously lived for 36 hours after the accident occurred. It was enough time to get his will and other legal affairs in order, I figure, because the paperwork I’ve found was in detailed, pristine condition. Most importantly, he said his goodbyes. The last one was to my grandfather, Edward, his only son. My Dad said his father, Edward, would tell him the story of how John Henry Jordan held out his arms and told him: “Come kiss your Pa goodbye.” Edward, my grandfather, was just 12 at the time. It breaks my heart to think of what that must have been like. My great-grandfather was so young, but nearly a century later, he is still not forgotten.

Losing a Pet

Administrator — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 05:22:03 +0000

The loss of a pet is never easy. It doesn’t matter what kind of pet it is. When a bond has been formed, it is difficult to break. My sister, Kristi, and her husband had to put their cat to sleep last week. Fluffy was old and sick. The trouble was they didn’t know how sick. Not until it was too late. Suspecting something, my sister and my brother-in-law, Julius, decided it was time to take her to get checked out. They didn’t realize it would be the last time they saw her. Julius was there, standing by Fluffy’s side as she took her last breath, her green eyes slowly going dark.

It takes part of your heart, I guess, when you lose a pet. I think back to my childhood pet, Happy, a beautiful collie who looked just like Lassie. We came home from school one day, I was in the second grade at the time, and Happy was gone. Our dog never left our street and rarely our front yard without us. We figured someone must have taken her out of a fenced-in area of our yard when no one was at home. My Mother was so heartbroken that we never had another dog after that. We loved Happy. Now that Fluffy is gone, who knows if Kristi and Julius will ever get another cat. I guess there are some things only time can heal.

Nothing like a Mom

Administrator — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 19:07:40 +0000

There’s nothing like a Mom. I realize this more and more the older I become. I think as a teenager I, like most kids probably, didn’t fully appreciate my Mother. At least not as much as I should have. I took for granted the delicious dinners she cooked everyday. The clothes she, lovingly, washed and ironed. The constant trips to and from school, shuttling me and my friends to new stores, the way she always stayed on top of whatever was going on in my life at the time. She still does that even if I am 2,000 miles away. The distance didn’t stop her from flying to California to help me celebrate my birthday last month. She arrived my birthday week (with a beautiful new haircut to boot!), excited to do my favorite things with me, namely shopping and eating. She cooked up a storm, kicked me out of my own kitchen, and even prepared enough food to last me at least a week after she left town. I’m sure I take her for granted (even though I try not to).

When I think back over the years, it is amazing to me the difference my Mom has made in my life. It was her dream for both me and my sister to attend the all-women’s college we attended in the Northeast though she never told us. However, she was astute enough to nudge me over to that college’s table at my high school’s college fair.

“Oh, look,” she pointed out, seemingly innocently. “There’s a Wellesley College table.”

Throughout those four years up North and the cold, Massachusetts winters, she regularly sent me care packages filled with food, snacks, and all the comforts of home. I remember friends often stopping by my room because they said they knew I’d have food. When I was in college, she and my Dad flew up for every Parent’s Weekend and even other times in between when I wasn’t going home for the holidays. It was her idea for me to attend graduate school since I had already decided, without so much as filling out an application, that I wouldn’t get in.

“Fill out that application, girl,” she nearly scolded me at the time. Of course, she was right, and it turned out to be one of the best experiences of my life.

She has always championed everything I do whether rallying her friends to attend my high school plays or proudly sending off my published articles to out-of-state family members. She always encouraged me when I was up and comforted me when I was down, and she still does. She’s the kind of Mother who even adopts and embraces my friends, sending them cards and talking to them by phone. As an adult, I have a new appreciation for my Mother. I think I am more keenly aware of the sacrifices she made like going to graduate school after having four children and even back then taking the time to concoct a great lotion on our kitchen stove for us to use that is known today as EmmGerri. Yet she has always been there for us no matter the time of day or night.
I thank God for my Momma, and there will never be another like her.

Memories of a Wonderful Life

Administrator — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 05:13:10 +0000

There are things I can remember. Thoughts I treasure that I do not want to forget. I’m remembering my Grandmother. This week marks the one-year anniversary of her death. She and I had a lot in common. I was actually partially named for her (one of my middle names). She and I were also both the third children in our families and the first girl born after two boys. We shared a love of clothes (my Grandmother was always decked out especially when she went to church on Sunday) and a love of travel. My Grandmother saw a good part of the world, Europe, Panama, and crisscrossed the United States multiple times. She even took an Alaskan cruise in her later years. Didn’t leave the boat though.

“I saw Alaska from the ship,” she explained to me at the time. “I didn’t leave the ship, but I saw it.”

I guess that was good enough for her. She was close to all of her family and years after her Dad’s death, she still loved to brag about him. I think she thought her father hung the moon. Daddy Willoughby is what he was affectionately called by all of us. My Grandmother used to love to tell me about his farm, the lumber business he had, and the pharmacy he co-owned. She and her sister and brothers were blessed in many ways. As my Dad pointed out to me the other day, my Grandmother and her six siblings all lived to celebrate at least their 50th wedding anniversaries with each of their spouses (Daddy Willoughby, and my Great-Grandmother, Mama Willoughby, lived to celebrate their 76th).

I miss my Grandmother’s old stories and her rich, intoxicating, rhythmic laugh. I can still hear it clearly now. I treasure the memories of us doing things together like when she would proudly whisk me and my sister, Kristi, to downtown Newnan to buy us new dolls and milkshakes when we were kids. There was nothing like the family reunions and the Fourth of July barbecues. I also cherished the rare occasions like when it was just the two of us sitting at her kitchen table eating tomato sandwiches at midnight.

My Grandmother lived her life well. It was a wonderful life. She taught me how to live with dignity and last year showed me how to die with dignity. For that, I will be forever grateful.

Father’s Day

Administrator — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 19:58:02 +0000

What is a father? To me, a father is kind, warm, loves unconditionally, is always supportive, and ready with a waiting smile and open arms. Those are just some of the characteristics that describe my Dad. I think, in addition to his four children, anyone who knows him would agree. To know him is to love him. Unfortunately, I wasn’t home for Father’s Day this year, but I told him I’ll have to make it up to him. Celebrating fathers, I think, is something we shouldn’t take for granted. My minister, Bishop Kenneth Ulmer, said today a father paints an outline and life fills it in; I like that. My Dad has watched life fill in my outline, cheering me on through the victories and carrying me through the disappointments while helping steady me through the ups and downs. There is nothing that can compare to the worth of a father’s influence on a daughter. My Dad has made every difference to me. Wherever I have moved in this country, he has made it his business to visit often, find out everything about where I live, the neighborhood, the people. When I was in college in Massachusetts, he’d schedule business trips to Boston to spend time with me and hang out on campus with me and my friends. He and I also share a love of genealogy and classical music.

And my Dad is full of surprises. What many people who have known him for years don’t know is that, in addition to having a scientific mind, he is a gifted poet. He shocked me and my Mom by reciting one of his original works at my sister’s rehearsal dinner the night before her wedding a few years back. It was called, “What is a daughter,” in which he expounded on his love for my younger sister. One of my brother-in-law’s relatives liked it so much, she asked my Dad for a copy.

On this Father’s Day, I salute the man who loved me before I was born, has treasured me since I arrived, and has served as a model for me in so many ways. He is the embodiment of what a Dad is.