It was meant to honor our fallen soldiers, but if you drive by a cemetery today, you know the day has become a day to remember our loved ones.  All though members of my extended family always make a trip to the cemetery, my mother was one who didn't.  Never once did we go out to decorate my grandparents' graves.

"They aren't there," she would say. Or, "They know I am thinking about them." Consequently, my children and I don't take flowers out to her marker either.  It is a tradition. One we don't have. 

"I don't have to take flowers out to a place to show my mother respect and prove that I miss her," I say. I think about and miss my mother everyday. Sometimes to the point of tears, and it has been five years.

We strive to be the memorial that honors our loved ones. How I handle problems honors my father. How my children cook honors the influence of my mother and grandmother. We laugh, we pull toes, we tease, we grow flowers, we face life with optimism, we hug.  These are the things we received and pass on to my grandchildren, from my mom, my dad, my cousin and my grandparents. They know I am grateful.

I believe the best way to honor our soldiers is to take care of them while they are in the military and when they come home.  To stick a gun in the hand of a person barely out of their teens, subject them to the unthinkable, extend their tour again and again and again is not honorable. These kids are not machines. They return with real problems, physical, mental and sometimes lifetime injuries. Those are the ones who come back. The families of those who do not come back should not be forgotten. They are the ones who live the decisions of our elected officials.

The best way to honor our servicemen and women is for our government to make the kind of decisions that keep us from sending one more son, one more daughter into a war zone. 

Tonight, Senator Barack Obama surpassed Hillary Clinton in the number of pledged delegates, effectively assuring his nomination as the Democratic nominee for President.  I watched his speech from Iowa and cheered as he spoke of his gratitude for the people who have given their time, their money, their support of him:  the grandmothers who spent time on the phone calling folks they don't know; people who are having trouble paying their bills who have written checks to his campaign for $5.00; college students who have given their vacations to stuff envelopes. 

His is truly a grassroots campaign.  He put John McCain on alert, that he is ready for the battle, ready for the anticipated attack that will be waged against him personally because They can't find fault with his ideas to strengthen our nation. His ideas are common sense. And the ONLY thing that doesn't change with Barack Obama is his viewpoint. He outlined his policies 15 months ago and has not flip-flopped once--unlike John McCain and Hillary Clinton. Just like the common sense advice your mom gave you that you didn't want to hear, you realize over time, she was right. So Barack Obama is  right.

We believe, I believe, and if you don't yet, think about your 401k losses, think about your children and their medical care, think about your personal finances, think about our country in relation to our world. George Bush has sold us out to the highest bidder and Dick Cheney had stuffed his coffers with your paycheck. Change is coming to America. Thank God.

Undoubtedly, politics brings out the best and worst in people. My years of working in the public relations field has given me a perspective of political campaigns that I sometimes wish I didn't have. The spin is so obvious. The posturing so divisive.  Get them before they get you.  All the strategies can be found in a college PR textbook. Granted, it takes a savvy staff to position a candidate in the best public light, but it still sickens me when fear is used as a political ploy.

Opinion is opinion and facts are facts and must be substantiated when quoted.  We are the most fortunate people to live in a country where technology is at our fingertips. No longer should we rely on 30 minute network news to form an opinion. Nor should we ever rely on forwarded emails that cite inflammatory statistics with no verification. Not when we have the Internet. How simple it is to search a topic and find hundreds of pieces of information with credible sources to use to construct our own perspective, built on research.

Question authority used to be the mantra of the 60's. Today I suggest we question motives, question agendas, question statements that create feelings of fear.  When people can't make a clear case, they often resort to fear tactics. It's called intimidation and you see it in its most primitive forms in school yards, on the streets and most recently in Internet chat rooms; hateful name calling, smear campaigns, full out lies meant to put someone down and elevate the other to a lofty place - mudslinging is too kind a word for what has become a free-for-all where truth is shoved aside and attack is status quo. 

Use your words, we used to teach our children. Use your words to solve your problems, not your fists. It used to be a given that those words would be sound and based on truth. After all, "do not bear false witness against your brother," used to mean something. If the Republican party is the party of the conservative religious right, perhaps they might want to refresh their memory of the 10 Commandments.

Use your words I say to my three -year -old granddaughter.  Tell the truth we teach our children.  Research the facts we tell our students.

It's called civility. Diplomacy.

The only people who can't grasp this concept are those who attack like junk yard dogs, hoping to frighten everyone away the territory they are protecting; and those who foolishly succumb to that fear tactic. In this case, the territory is the presidency. In this case it is a political machine who cares nothing about history, facts or our future. To be sucked in to their spin of fear mongering and attacks is to be sucked into one of the strongest public relations campaigns ever launched. It takes portions of the truth and divides it up into unrecognizable pieces and calls it fact.  Like a mangled mutt, torn to shreds in a dog fight, so goes their assault on the Truth.

My dog Buster had the best Mother's Day ever.  He (yes, he is a he) had so much fun playing with my grandkids he ran up the slide stairs of the swing set and jumped off! Legs straight, in the air, if he had a red cape we would call him UnderDog! We laughed so hard.  Picture this: the 13 year-old is sitting in the clubhouse of the swing set texting "the girlfriend" while his 5 year-old brother and 3 year-old sister are chasing each other round and round the play-set screaming. The 1 year-old is chasing the Boxer dog -Buster- when, in from the other side of the yard comes the Golden ready to cut the Buster off and save the kids. The dogs tussle, the kids scream, the parents laugh and the Grandma wishes her mother was here to see the whole thing.  It was one of those so sweet, chaotic moments that make an ordinary day remarkable. 

Thank you. You Are My Sunshine!

When I decided to drive to North Carolina to take part in the Obama campaign, my friend Cynthia, on crutches from a recent foot surgery, agreed to make the drive with me.  She is always game to participate in an adventure! "Don't expect me to talk to anybody," she told me before we left. "Don't worry, I'll do all the talking," I assured her.  We snaked through the tornadoes that hit Arkansas and Tennessee with no consequence, only to meet with trouble in Nashville.  i hate getting old. I tried to break my toe on wet tile. Cynthia accused me of trying to steal her sympathy!!! We arrived in Asheville on Saturday, declaring ourselves The Injured For Obama!

After checking into our hotel, we studied a local map picked up at a visitor's center, and after a few wrong turns, found our way to an Obama stop housed in the front of printing shop. We met Mike, who told us we could begin our canvassing Sunday afternoon. Three women from Mississippi dropped in, on their way to Charlotte. They were as surprised and pleased to see us as we were to see them given the media hype that 50 + women are solidly behind Hillary.  I don't know who "they" poll, but clearly 2/3 of the volunteers we saw were white women over 30. 

Sunday morning we visited Jubilee Community Church on Wall St. An old friend of Church of the Servant in  Oklahoma City, Howard Hanger, is the Pastor there. Howard used to come to our church every Christmas for the Hanging of the Greens ceremony. Every pore of Howard's body and soul exudes happiness and joy. He is a loving man of God who celebrates Christ and God's beautiful expressions on earth.  Walking into Jubilee was like stepping back to the 1980s when Church of the Servant was a small community in a small church. Today, it has more than 6000 members with a beautiful campus in northwest OKC. Jubilee's walls have quilted sayings of scripture and encouraging words, art work of members and music that lifts your soul - and your attitude!  After such a positive morning of praise and renewal, we were ready to hit the streets and campaign!

Mike gave us lists of registered Democrats and Independents and a Google map. Sounds easy enough. I never fully appreciated how traversing a city built on a grid is (like OKC) until I tried to navigate in the hills up and around the River Arts District in Asheville!  If you make a wrong turn in OKC you can just go down a block, drive a square pattern and you are back where you started. Not in Asheville!  If I turned around once, I turned around 50 times.  They also seemed to have forgotten to put street signs on many of the intersections. Not a problem if you live there, but a real problem for us foreigners!  

We drove up and down the hills and low mountains outside of Asheville, down gravel roads, rutted dirt roads and nicely paved roads. I talked to as many folks as I could as Cynthia plotted out our stops with our Google map and our local Asheville map.  One young mother, with a child in her arms and one at her feet said she hadn't yet decided who to vote for, but she knew there needed to be some kind of change. Gas was right around $3.65. She was intrigued that we would drive all the way from Oklahoma to talk to  her and her neighbors.  She listened intently as I told her how impressed I am with Senator Obama, that I trust what he says and support his ideas for our country. She thanked me for coming to her door and said she would drive to the Emma school on Tuesday and vote for change, Obama change.

We left literature on doorknobs about the primary and looked admiringly at the tall pines and shoulder-high blooming azaleas in colors I have never seen before.  After 4 hours (and only one hateful man!) we quit for the day. Laurel and Hardy had managed to find most of the houses on the list. Mike was pleased with our efforts.

The antipathy of the rural community we visited on Sunday is the castle we visited on Monday. The 5000 acre Biltmore Estate owned by the Vanderbilt family is a city all its own.  Fortunately for Cynthia, they provided wheelchairs. Unfortunately for me, they didn't provide anyone to push the wheelchairs!  Laurel and Hardy roamed the halls of the largest home in the United States and I only nearly tossed her out once by hitting a door jam. Each time I left her to go get the car or take a bag, I would come back to find her talking with someone about the real purpose of our visit. My friend who wasn't going to talk about Obama because she didn't think she knew enough to convince anyone to vote for him, talked to everyone who stood near her, including the man who ran the elevator! Go Cynthia!

If you want your car decorated creatively, give the job to a teenager. Armed with Barack posters and painter's tape, this young guy transformed my little red clown car (a Honda Fit) into a roving Obama car. He put posters on the doors, the hood, the windows and the roof (just in case a helicopter should fly by!). Inside the Merriman headquarters Tuesday morning, people were on the phone, families were there encouraging their children to make posters. it was a vibrant hub of enthusiastic strangers gathered together with all the anticipation of the promise of Christmas or the birth of a new baby. Smiles passed from face to face, hand shakes and compliments, pats on the back, coach's half-time speeches sent each one of us on our mission prepared for victory. 

Sue gave us our first assignment: the corner of Montford and Chestnut.  We opened the tailgate of my car and Cynthia sat in the back with her hand-made sign, crutches leaning near by, and waved at passers-by as I stood and waved at cars coming from the opposite way.  We looked a little like a lost float in need of a political parade. Once the car horns of affirmation began in earnest, our feelings of foolishness were replaced with pride and a challenge to get a response from every car that passed. Of the hundreds of cars that passed us, only two stereotypical redneck guys made racial slurs. So many people: white, black, old, young, male and female honked and waved you would have thought we were giving out hundred dollar bills.  But then again, we are talking about the future of our country and folks are excited to be part of something big, hopeful that these days of incomprehensible gas prices and increasing death tolls in Iraq will soon be memories that we will use to show our grandchildren how Democracy worked one vote at a time in 2008.

We finished our Tuesday primary day with the Obama car parked in front of Pack Center in downtown Asheville. There we combined efforts with an excited 50 something black woman who was giving the Hillary delegation on the opposite corner a run for their money. Another Asheville woman (also over 40!) formed our small but very demonstrative band of Obama supporters. By the end of the day we had directed people to their polling places, handed out fliers, explained why we were supporting Obama, and waved to at least a thousand cars.

Too tired to go to the official watch party, we two Injured for Obama, sat that night in a pizzeria near our hotel and listened to Bluegrass music while watching Barack Obama's victory speech on the restaurant's tiny television.  The election results for the the North Carolina and Indiana Democratic primaries raced across the bottom of the screen.  As i sat taking in the scene (one I would never have imagined I'd find myself: in the South in a predominately white establishment watching a black man win the election by  14 percentage points) I am gratified that things can change. CNN called the win for Barack 30 seconds after the NC polls closed.  My son remarked that  there must be ice cycles in Hell!  Indeed!