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Walking with Dolly: Fathers, Quiet Acts of Love, and Pride

. Dolly Parton, Family, Family Travel, Spiritual Fitness . , , , , , , , , ,

Robert Lee Parton: This video was from 2016, and I had never seen it until Thursday morning. I fought back my own stifled sob when Dolly choked up with tears while telling about her father scrubbing her statue. Dolly Parton had immense love and respect for her father often calling him one of the smartest men she ever knew. Dolly also treasured his strong work ethic, humor, and grounded nature. She admired how hard he worked to provide for their family.

Oliver Haven Caylor: My father and I had several things in common: intellectual curiosities, spiritual curiosities, and curiosities about nature. What struck me most, as I have reflected on this over the years, is how those shared threads kept weaving themselves back into my understanding of who he was — and who I was becoming.

My father was a genius. I have no idea about his Intelligence Quotient (IQ), but when he took the  1960’s  postal exam to be a United States postal worker, he scored the highest IQ score which was at the “genius level” ever recorded at that time. I am not a genius, so when it came to school grades, I loved it when my excellent grades pleased him. It was so cool to talk to Daddy about my core curriculum activities as well as world events in an “adult manner”.

My whole, nuclear family, Daddy, Mama, Karen and I, were all baptized into Christ the same night … Tuesday July 31, 1979  ..( thanks for the refresher, Google… LOL), so for the next three years after we becoming Christians until his death, Daddy and I had a brother in Christ bond. Whether Daddy and I did scripture reading, announcements, lead a prayer or whatever church related, we would discuss and critique each other.

My father’s life was FISHING. I did enjoy fishing but not like he did. As I have grown older and “come to know myself” I enjoy being active even if it is piddling in the house or the yard. I don’t like sitting down and watching television or staring at a computer/phone for 12 hours straight nor did I want to be fishing for 12 hours straight, but my father could and would. Our strongest Nature Smart connection was being in the woods with hunting dogs. Daddy had raised and hunted with several hounds such as King, Queen, and Bolivar as a boy into teen years. I was riveted to his tales of hunting and being in the woods. It was Daddy who got me my first coonhounds, Copper and Chief, in 1982. He knew how badly I was wanting coonhounds, so he secretly investigated, found, bought, and brought me home those two awesome coonhound puppies. We raised them together.

I know Dolly told her parents she loved them and they told her they loved her. I told my father I loved him, and he told me he loved me. But, there is something about those actions speaking louder than words, right? That story made me think about my own father and Lee Parton, who were some 18 years apart and yet were very similar in some of their child rearing. The video I have embedded was not what I was expecting. I had heard two separate stories about Lee Parton’s feelings about a person’s pride, and how he felt about her statue. He did not seem to like pride, nor did my father. Until I saw this video on Thursday, I had only seen some 30 year old videos where Dolly admits she was deflated with his words of “… to the pigeons you’re just another toilet”. One evening on the way to Wednesday night Bible study, I was discussing the difficulties of the school day, and Daddy was sharing how I need to concentrate more in good ol’ Algebra II.  My father was excellent at all branches of mathematics, and I was not. However, I was learning a foreign language which I knew was a talent with which God had blessed me, and my father had never taken a foreign language. I quickly turned the tables, and told him how I had been respectfully correcting my Spanish teachers’ errors on tests and keeping my high A average. I then arrogantly quipped, “Why didn’t you take a foreign language, Daddy? Didn’t you think it might help you in your future”? Without skipping a beat, Daddy quipped back, “Well, what has it done for you? You’re still just as self-centered as you were before.” With a sudden pride deflation, I kind of melted in my passenger’s seat and thought, “Gee thanks, Daddy.” I don’t think I said a single word to him until after we left the church building that evening.

Fast forward about nine months after this dialogue to another dialogue about a month after Daddy passed. I was commiserating with Nanny, Daddy’s mother regarding his death. She and I leaned on each other after his passing. As I have written before, she had lost her father when she was in high school, so she and I now shared this unfortunate bond. I was in a depressed state sharing how I did not think Daddy was proud of me, and I was sitting beside her with tears silently rolling down my cheeks. “Son, he was so proud of you. One night after he brought me home from evening church, and it was just him and me, we sat and chatted for a few minutes. I asked him what he thought about your latest accomplishments (Spanish awards, band awards, academic awards, running in the woods with coonhounds), and he said, ‘He continually amazes me. There is no one else like him in the world’.”  I was dumbfounded and elated at the same time.

So, back to Dolly and the video about her statue and her father. When she started telling the reporter about her statue and her father, I thought, “Here we go again. It’s the tale of her father telling her she is just a pigeon’s toilet.” Nope. Her father would come to the courthouse at night when no one was around and scrub her statue. That’s where the quiet acts of love come in.

The comparison isn’t that Daddy and Lee Parton’s lives were nearly the same, but that both fathers expressed their deepest pride in ways their children almost missed entirely. Dolly did not get to spend three teen years with her father where it was just her and him. For three years, I got to have my father all to myself in my household. My sister Karen had married and was out of the house when I was thirteen, and Daddy died when I was sixteen. Dolly had to share her father with 11 brothers and sisters. She did not have the precious gift of continuous, one-on-one bonding time with her father. Dolly did not get to see him scrub her statue, but I got to see my father sit up with me and work Algebra II word problems when I was moaning that I did not understand the process of turning words into equations. He knew my wants and desires for coonhound puppies and secretly bought and brought those special fur babies home to me, and he told my Nanny, his mother, how much my accomplishments meant to him — words accompanying actions. This is what Dolly Parton’s father helped me recognize about my own: love doesn’t always announce itself. Sometimes it shows up at midnight with a scrub brush, or with two coonhound puppies, or in a quiet conversation with a grandmother when no one else is listening.

Looking back, I can now see that both Dolly and I were loved fiercely and quietly by men who didn’t always say it in the ways we expected — but who never stopped showing it.

What quiet act of love or pride do you remember from your father or father image? I’d love for you to share it in the comments here or on my social media pages.

Glowing wisps of light above a mountain valley and winding river
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YHWH: I am

. Church, Jesus Christ Follower, Spiritual Fitness . , , ,

I did not think this up, but a clever preacher, Mark Flynn, preached a wonderful sermon one morning years ago from the Hebrew word, YHWH (to be, to exist, to breathe). God is the great “I am” which is the present tense of “to be”; God was, God is, and God will be. He is always “to be” because He is eternal.  In his sermon, Brother Mark was like , “Breathe while using these letters… Yhhhhh (inhaling) and Whhhhhhh (exhaling)”. Did you try it? Go ahead, I will wait….

I was dumbfounded and actually felt “being” as I was sitting and breathing and trying to breathe YHWH. Did you feel that way too? God gave Adam the “breath of life”, and we have it too. We know we can have it because Jesus Christ, God’s son, reminds us that HE IS as part of God with his words of “I am” . So, this isn’t a lesson on baptism, but just a few scriptures where we know we are connected to Jesus and the Holy Spirit.

Acts 2:38 Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit and Galatians 3:27 for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.

When we dwell in Jesus the Christ we are a part of the “I am” , y’all!

The preacher today did not share all the Jesus “I ams”, but he did use the Exodus 3:15 YHWH and connected it to Jesus. Like the Apostle Paul told the Greeks who were traveling up on the Athens Acropolis and thinking about honoring the “unknown god” (they did not want to offend a “left out god”)… I’m paraphrasing but Paul said, “ I am here to preach about that God in whom we live, breath, and have everything else”. Paul then finished up by telling of Jesus’ resurrection as God’s son, our  “breathing, alive, savior”

This morning, my heart has been so full that I felt I couldn’t keep this to myself—I felt led to share a simple, beautiful way to experience YHWH on this peaceful Sunday. Each time I’ve returned to this gentle breathing exercise today, it has wrapped me in deep peace, softened my worries, and helped me feel cradled in His presence. Whether this is your very first time trying something like this, or you’ve practiced breathing and feeling YHWH’s nearness before, I invite you to come back to it with a peaceful, open heart, rest quietly in that presence, and then consider sharing what you experience so others can be comforted and encouraged, too.

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How Nana’s Petunias Taught Me Growing and Flourishing as a Human

. Family, Jesus Christ Follower, Spiritual Fitness . , , , , , , , , ,

I can’t remember exactly when Carter, Ammon, Sean, and I first tucked those tiny petunia starters into Nana’s urns—sometime between 2018 and 2020, or maybe even earlier—but I remember how it felt; we four working together to make Nana (Joyce Carter Brown) feel happy and proud. Nana had two urns, one by her front door and one nestled between her garage doors, and after that first winter the petunias did what living things do when they’re given half a chance—they died back, then quietly self-seeded and returned, spring after spring. When Nana passed, I worried that without her gentle “petting” and without us there to water and fuss over them, they’d finally give up. Instead, in a way that still feels mysterious to me, the flowers near the front door faded, but the ones between the garage doors flourished. From July 2022 through June 2024, whenever we were at Nana’s house, I found myself on weeding and babying those stubborn blooms, learning that tending petunias isn’t so different from tending our own hearts: both need time, attention, and a bit of faith to keep growing. The day we brought Nana’s furniture to Knoxville, I wrapped the urn in padded towels and tucked it carefully behind my truck seat, determined that the life she had nurtured would keep going. Of course, the petunias made it safely to our new front porch in Farragut, and the photo you see captures the moment they began their next season with us.

As the days grew shorter and the frosts set in during the autumn of 2024, I kept asking myself where Nana’s petunias would be safest. I moved the urn between our garage doors, hoping the extra winter sun would help them hang on. For a few weeks they tried, but the frosts finally took them, and I gently cleared away the dead foliage. The urn stayed there between the garage doors through the quiet winter months. Time moved on, and at last the spring of 2025 arrived. I carried the urn back to our front door, remembering how, at Nana’s house, tiny green petunia leaves would bravely push their heads up through the soil each year. I couldn’t recall exactly when in the spring they usually appeared, but I kept waiting and watching, as if looking for a sign that something cherished in our lives might return. Nothing. The urn remained by the front door until the middle of summer. Only a few blades of grass and stubborn weeds emerged. My heart sank, and I prayed, “Thank you, God, for the years you gave us with Nana and her petunias. I am glad they got to move with us and flourish for a season.” In that moment, I felt how much our own lives resemble those flowers—how we, too, bloom for a time and then make room for whatever comes next. I sadly moved the urn to our back deck, where it has remained. You all have seen our lovely Alberta spruces in my social media posts, the ones we bought at Home Depot. They now flank our front doors. We love them, and they should live for almost 20 years, quietly gracing our entryway with their evergreen steadiness, a different kind of flourishing.

Side story: when we moved into our house here in Knoxville, a beautiful tulip tree stood right beside our garage. Its elegant pink blooms welcomed us the very first time we saw the house on Saturday, March 16, 2024, and we were immediately smitten. By the time we actually moved in, the tree had traded its blooms for luscious green leaves, and we were already imagining the joy of seeing those blossoms return in March 2025. Then, in the summer of 2024, a crack appeared in the garage. We soon learned that the house had a history of foundation settling, and while the tulip tree’s roots were not the only cause, they were quietly adding to the problem. With heavy hearts, we accepted that we had to cut the tree down and grind the stump so the roots would stop harming the garage’s foundation. It felt like another lesson in how even something beautiful can, over time, put pressure on what we’re trying to build. Let me make a connection and build some schema for what is coming. The petunia urn sat about ten feet from the little shrub garden that surrounded the tulip tree. The tree company came in around March of 2025 to cut it down and, eventually, grind the stump. Nothing remained of that lovely tulip tree, and the small shrubs sit there to this day, a quiet reminder that growth as well as protection (we didn’t want the garage to tumble down(, both in gardens and in our lives, sometimes means letting go.

I love being outside. There isn’t constant care needed here in this yard like at McDonald Road. We are blessed to have an economical and kind lawn maintenance man who both mows and weed eats. Sean and I scratch around in the flower beds, pick up sticks, and are blessed with a wonderful pine thicket where we can haul the yard debris. Easter weekend this year, I was piddling in the yard and pulling some weeds in the scrub bed beside the garage. Right at the edge of the shrub garden, where it meets the pebbled driveway, I noticed a little green plant that did not look like a weed. It reminded me of the tiny sprouts of self-seeding petunias that once flourished in Nana’s urns. I thought, “No way!” I didn’t tell Sean or the family. I simply weeded around it and started watering it. Then several more sprouts appeared. I waited patiently for several weeks. Weeds or petunias? On Saturday, May 2, 2026, my question was answered. A beautiful pink petunia bloomed—a carbon copy of one of the colors Nana had in her urn. I was elated, and tears quickly filled my eyes. I wiped them away, snapped a photo, and texted it to Sean. He quickly came down, and we both stood and stared in nostalgic love and remembrance.

All summer long the petunias kept spreading, and their colors were exactly the same as the ones that had once filled the urn. I cherished every minute of weeding and watering them in this summer of 2026, quietly hoping that next spring and summer they will grow enough to cover the very space where the tulip tree once stood.

Botany tells us that petunia seeds can wait silently in the earth for years until the conditions are right to bloom, but this is more than mere “science” to me; it feels like a spiritual connection. Nana’s flowers returning to us out of nowhere after 16 months is a gentle reminder from God that love never really leaves us—it simply waits, then finds new ways to bloom and spread when the time is right. Just as those tiny seeds rested, unseen, until they could push beyond the small urn and spill into a bigger space, our hearts, too, can lie quiet and hidden after loss or change. Yet God invites us to trust that, in His time, the love we have received will stir again and help us grow beyond what we once thought possible. Like the petunias breaking free of their old container and flourishing in a wider patch of earth, we are called to let God lead us beyond our small, familiar spaces so we, too, can grow, flourish, and fill the world around us with beauty.

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Walking with Dolly: Finding My Way Home

. Christmas Hawk, Dolly Parton, Family, Jesus Christ Follower, Parenting, Pets . , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

I was four years old when Dolly Parton walked into my life. She owned the television screen selling Breeze laundry detergent.

I certainly didn’t know that more than fifty-five years later I would still be walking with her.

My mother, Georgie Caylor, was already a Dolly Parton fan, and when Mama, said, “Oh, there is Dolly Parton.” I knew exactly who she was. I could not recollect her songs, but somehow my four-year-old mind (okay, just a few months away from being five) decided that Dolly Parton was important, and she, indeed, was. Check her out…

And now, 55 years after this commercial, Dolly is gone from her earthly home. But perhaps that is where the meaning of her song “Home” begins.

Dolly’s earthly home in the hills around Locus Ridge, Tennessee / Pigeon Forge is like me and my childhood in the hills of North Georgia combined with my home in McDonald, Tennessee where God blessed me, Sean, Carter, and Ammon as a family for 20 years.

When I hear Dolly’s “Home” it’s not just another country music song.

From my blessed childhood, I see me and my sister, Karen, at our house in Varnell, Georgia catching June bugs in the summertime afternoons then lightning bugs later that night in our yard.

I hear whippoorwills and katydids at Nanny and Granddaddy’s house which was also in Varnell. Still at Granddaddy and Nanny’s house, I hear a Southern Railway diesel at three o’clock in the morning. The whistle and the chug are far away. It draws nearer and nearer. It’s finally just beyond the front yard shaking the 100-year-old windows, then it rumbles into the distance. Then I drift back to sleep while enjoying the smell of the 4 o’clock flowers that are blooming right beneath the open bedroom window.

Dolly’s fishing pole reminds me of being at Mamaw Wimpy’s house and pond (only about 15 miles away from Varnell) where I would literally use a cane pole to fish for bream. We would catch bream and blue gill right and left. Every once in a while, I would have to put the fishing pole down and search high and low between the pond and the barn for crickets to use as live bait. At the end of the day at Mamaw Wimpy’s we would drink ice-cold Coca-Cola or eat popsicles on her front porch as we listened to thousands of jar flies singing across Houston Valley.

Back at my house, I can feel Mamaw kissing my scrapes and scratches after falling all around the yard during summertime play; oh, my goodness that unconditional love from Mama! … I am picking corn or digging potatoes with Daddy in our summer garden listening to him tell stories of his childhood… loved, loved, loved and miss the way Daddy could tell a story…

…And somewhere at the beginning of those memories, I am four years old again, sitting in front of a television watching Dolly Parton sell Breeze detergent.

Dolly’s song then helps me change to McDonald Road where, thanks to Carter and Ammon, I got to have a second childhood. I am watching Carter and Ammon as two toddlers run through the lush green grass we sometimes had to mow twice a week with the tractor during wet summers. I am swimming under the stars in our pool. Ammon, Carter, and I are running and playing tag under the shade of the Black Walnut Trees or taking a Montessori walk for our daily science lesson. The wonderful traditions of catching lightning bugs and June bugs were passed on to Carter and Ammon from Varnell to McDonald Road. My thoughts flash up to Grindstone Mountain with 5 Black and Tan coonhounds on a moonlit, autumn evening listening to their melodious bawls and chops as they track and tree raccoons. Our dachshunds, Sophie and Buddy, hang close by to me and enjoy every smell around them in the crisp, night air. I can hear the Screech Owl and the Horned Owl make their calls to each other across the mountain. In my winter thoughts I can feel the freezing snowballs hitting me in the face when Carter and Ammon threw them at me and see my giddy children creating snow angels. It was also because of Dolly and her love of the Smoky Mountains that I included in our children’s book, “Christmas Hawk” that Hawk’s region to help Santa search and report for his good children list was between the Mississippi River and the Great Smoky Mountains.

Once again, who needs a pool when you have sprinklers! April 30, 2012
Carter & his Cannoball
Ammon & her Cannonball
Ammon, Katie, Carter, & Caleb
The Caylor-Brown’s House February 26, 2015 #Snomageddon
Ammon & Carter make snow angels on Snowmageddon Day = February 26, 2015

So, as I begin to close this post which has been over three weeks in the making, please watch Dolly’s “Home” video again…

Are you back? Home isn’t a physical house is it?  Since I fell in love with Dolly’s song, “Home” in 2014,  I believe this is what she has given me…

It has reminded me that home is not necessarily the house where we grew up, the house where we raised our children, or even the place where we happen to live today.

Home is Mama and Daddy.

Home is Nanny and Granddaddy.

Home is Mamaw Wimpy’s pond, a fishing pole, a cricket in my pocket, and the sound of jar flies humming through Houston Valley.

Home is a Southern Railway whistle fading into the darkness.

Home is five coonhounds bawling somewhere on Grindstone Mountain.

Home is lightning bugs in Varnell or McDonald Road.

Home is watching Ammon and Carter making snow angels.

Home is Carter and Ammon running through the grass.

Home is me swimming beneath the stars.

And perhaps, ultimately, home is the place toward which all of us are traveling.

For over 70 years, Dolly was singing about and honoring her earthly home that she knew so well, and for 55 years, I walked with her, sang with her, and honored both of our homes because they were so much alike. The first thing I did on Tuesday August 25, 2026, the day Dolly Parton died, upon arriving in my kitchen after school was to play “Home”.  As Dolly winked then bowed goodbye at the end of the song, I winked back at her and bawled out loud. Tears were flowing. On that day, I lost my lovely and talented walking partner who was called to her heavenly home. She now knows the eternal home that I have spent my life believing in just as she believed. And one day by the grace of God, I hope to know it too. …Until then, I will keep walking for Dolly and her legacy here on this terrestrial ball. And I will keep returning “home”.

“Raised on Dolly” is correct… this is the serving tray that my mother bought for me. The coffee set goes with it.

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Dolly’s Ambitions: A Tribute to Ammon and Carter

. Dolly Parton, Education, Family, friends, HOSA, Mental Fitness, Parenting, writing . , , , , , , , , , ,

Happy September 2026. I have not posted a blog in two years. After Dolly Parton’s death, I returned to my blog to share my initial heartbreak and thoughts; however, WordPress, the blog platform, had locked me out. Why? Well, the email I had used since I first created the blog was obsolete. The email provider was exclusive to our area of Ooltewah, yet not a provider here in our area of Knox County. The process to change the parent email to blog took over two weeks, y’all!

The process finally ended today, September 12. I was ecstatic. I wanted to dedicate my return blog to Dolly…. but something changed this morning. First, I want to blog ASAP so I will not lose the momentum. Second, I have several blog posts semi-ready for Dolly but not quite, so… Dolly is going to help me praise and lift up my most precious gifts, Carter and Ammon, in this blog. This morning  they just took another round of the Scholastic Aptitude Test. We brought them home after the test, and I began to clean the kitchen countertops. Near the coffee pot is a wooden, Dolly quote “Cup of Ambition” and two cute cups where another household member and I could share a cup of coffee together. My mother, Georgie Caylor, saws these sweet Dolly knick-knacks several years ago, and she bought them for our kitchen. My mother has been a Dolly Parton fan for nearly 60 years. I have been a fan for over 55 years.

Mamaw (Georgie Caylor) Bought this coffee set for us several years ago. As you can see the wooden “Cup of Ambition” and the cute, clear coffee cups with butterflies and Dolly’s signature.

Folks, I love and appreciate Ammon and Carter’s “ambition” to be both successful high school students as well as future pre-med and medical students. They also have such wonderful hearts for creating useful organizations and serving others. They have made their high school chapter of their HOSA https://hosa.org/ club grow by leaps and bounds. They were the only underclassmen to qualify for the 2025 international convention, and this year, Carter finished as #10 Internationally in his category of Nutrition. They have helped create their chapter of the National Science Club and they are co-presidents of the school’s Model United Nations. They are also very instrumental in driving their high school Key Club (service club) activities for its community. These two busy Beavers (pun intended… its their school mascot) will be sending in applications for prospective universities quite soon, and we are all anxious to see what God has in store for them.

As Carter and Ammon ambitiously step into their senior year and begin the journey of applying to colleges and universities, our hearts are so full. We are incredibly grateful for the bright, ambitious young adults they’ve grown into and for all the love and support you all have poured upon them since birth.

This next chapter brings big decisions, high hopes, and plenty of stress. Sean and I would be so deeply grateful if you would keep them in your thoughts and prayers during this season—for clarity as they choose where to apply, peace of mind through the waiting, and confidence in wherever their paths lead next.

Thank you for loving them alongside Sean and me! God is Great, and so are you all. Oh, and thanks, Dolly, for helping me connect your beautiful, heart-filled “ambition” to Ammon and Carter’s ambitions.

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Surgeries & their “Sleepy Time”

. Fitness, Physical Fitness, Physical Maintenance . , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

If you have had a colonoscopy, you know that the prep for the procedure is “torture”. However, the sleep during the procedure is “divine”. If it were only thus for two of my three surgeries. I have had three surgeries, the appendectomy, the prostate biopsy, and the most recent double inguinal (groin) hernia surgery. Yes, I know the anesthesia is different when a person has a colonoscopy, but for such intrusive and post pain procedures, could they not make the sleep enjoyable for regular surgeries?

I didn’t have a real surgery until I was 48 almost 49. It was  Saturday April 25, 2015. It was an emergency appendectomy. I had ZERO symptoms until 15 hours before my surgery. I even jogged 3 hours before my abdomen started aching. Once at Memorial Hospital in Chattanooga, I spent about 2 hours crawling to the Emergency Restroom Bathroom or rolling in constant discomfort on the waiting room floor. About 3 hours later, the ER physician said I needed pain medicine, but NO NURSE or whomever was attending, came to check my chart/computer. I lay and had dry heaves for another hour. I finally told Sean who was sitting by my side, “I don’t care who this disturbs, but I’m whistling for help!” I started, and the nurse walked in and said, “Sir, you are being too loud.” I answered, “I’m in pain!” The nurse continued, “… the doctor hasn’t given me any orders.”, I exclaimed, “He was here, and I asked for something for nausea.” Sean added, “yes, he was here and said he would prescribe Zofran.” I cannot remember if the nurse looked at a computer in the room or went to her station because my eyes were closed, but in a few minutes, she returned with the Zofran. I think she apologized, but it didn’t matter, the pain subsided until the CT scan was completed and read; appendicitis! This was approximately at 4 AM, and the emergency appendectomy was scheduled for about 7:30 AM that Sunday morning. The rest that I received from the anesthesia was spectacular. I did not even wake up from the surgery with a headache. Around 2 PM, the nurse had me walking, smiling, and talking as we strolled down the halls of Memorial Hospital. I was dismissed around 5 PM that evening. The BEST things to come of this emergency surgery were my surgery sleep/relief after 15 hours of abdomen pain and the surgeon on call, Dr. Walter Rose. I will mention him again later. The subsequent surgeries to come were lackluster to the appendectomy.

Fast forward 8 years to 2023 and my battle with a high Prostate Specifical Antigen along with an enlarged prostate. The MRI had shown LOW percentages of possible cancer; however, to be 100% sure, I wanted a prostate biopsy. It was at Erlanger with my urologist, Dr. Singh. The wait for this surgery was different, and I did not like it at all. The wait AND the post op was worse than the surgery! The sleep was okay, but Dr. Singh had NEVER said anything about being intubated. I did not realize they had stuck the tube down my throat until I could not swallow during lunch that afternoon. I never had a headache or felt nauseous, but I was “in a fog” all that Thursday. Friday and the weekend found me with lower abdominal pain and that was all. Thanks be to God I was 100% cancer free. If my prostate doesn’t behave, it could all happen again. Once again, neither a comfortable nor dignified experience, but at least the “rest” during surgery was so-so. I had not been battling agonizing abdomen pain for 15 hours, so I guess , perhaps, I didn’t appreciate the sleep as well. LOL

I wish someone would have shared that the longer the surgery the worse I would feel after the surgery. Not the pain, but the effects of the anesthesia. Back at Memorial on August 29 of this year, I found myself waiting for my hernia surgery. The surgeons in Knoxville could not even do an evaluation until the second week of September. Dr. Rose from Chattanooga could perform surgery a month earlier! As I lay on the gurney right before the surgery, the nurse anesthetist gave me my initial shot to “relax me”. I immediately felt the burn. OUCH!  In a few seconds, they began rolling me out of my private, pre-surgery holding room ( I do have to say KUDOS for the individual preop rooms at Memorial. The multi-patient preop room at Erlanger was horrible.) As I rolled to surgery, I remember seeing a few faces, but then I “was gone”.  When I started coming to, I could hear the quiet chatter around me, then the movement to a post op, individual room. The more I came out of the anesthesia, the worse I felt. I have an idea that most of us can take healing pain because we know that it will wane and finally subside, BUT that nausea accompanied by a headache! I did not want to open my eyes, and barely did for 6 hours. Most of you probably don’t know how much Sean loves popular music. As Sean and I pulled away from Memorial to return home to Knoxville, I asked Sean to turn off the radio. He made it over 2 hours without music because he knew how badly I was feeling; true love! I had nausea until up into the morning of August 30. It had been 24 hours. Four weeks later, there are just a few twinges of recuperation pain in my lower abdomen. I am lifting weights again (no squats as of yet) and jogging. However, the memory of the headache and nausea live on!

I will never forget listening to a wonderful, family friend, Gladys Souther Wilson, from Varnell ,Georgia. She had undergone multiple surgeries by the time she was 58, and she once said that every surgery is different. She was correct. If you have several minutes, share some of your surgery experiences. Does everyone have bad side effects from anesthesia? Does everyone go through headaches and nausea? Was my last 24-hour bout of anesthesia withdrawal normal?

So, to finish up, 1 ) Please , do, leave a comment. 2) I know most of us don’t like to plaster our surgeries across social media, so if a procedure or a surgery comes up where you would appreciate some prayers, reach out to me (DM on Facebook, Instagram, or a text message). I will do the same to you.

Last thing… thank you God for the people who have created anesthesia for surgeries whether they’ve been good or bad experiences afterwards. The sleep during surgery is one of Your mercies.

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Busy … from answered prayers

. Church, Family, Vols Football . , , , ,


Matthew 7:7  “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.”

The Caylor-Browns prayed and knocked, God opened the doors, and we are BUSY!!

Working through God’s answered prayers:

The house is wonderful, and we had to wait five months to
get it. God had the plan we just had to be patient. Boxes and bags abound. Sean is busy at the house while Carter, Ammon, and I are at our perspective schools.

I enjoy teaching high school Spanish again, and I am so
grateful God blessed me with my new school. I have zero unit plans or lessons plans from the past, so it’s all NEW and busy.

Ammon and Carter are getting their prayers answered by being
extra busy with public school Advanced Placement courses and honors courses. They really enjoy their clubs and football games so far.

The last and MOST important thing is using the gifts God gave us four to glorify Him, and He has guided us to a Spirit lead Methodist congregation. From May 30 until September 15, it was difficult being in Knoxville every Sunday. We had to move 20 years’ worth of Caylor-Brown collections to Knoxville while cleaning out and selling two houses , and the weekends were the only days we could transport the goods. So now that we have all our important things as well a “junky” things moved from McDonald Road, it’s time to GET BUSY serving our Creator here.

Happy Autumn, dear friends and loved ones. .  If you head to the Smoky Mountains going through Knoxville, spend a few days up here while enjoying a Tennessee Vols weekend, or simply want to visit this beautiful region of East Tennessee some weekend, give us a yell. You’re invited to our house. You can Text me or Sean, or you can send us a Direct Message on Facebook.

Love and Blessings to all

Haven


Haven Caylor-Brown's avatar

Baking with my “Babies” (yep, almost 15 they are!)

. Education, Family, Family Kitchen Time, Food, Parenting . , , , , , , , , ,

Both Carter and Ammon enjoy cooking and baking in the kitchen. I know Mamaw Wimpy was an excellent, country cook, but I never talked with her and spent time actually cooking and preparing meals. With Nanny, on the other hand, I was constantly in the kitchen with her watching and learning and even trying new recipes. The food was always delicious, but, better yet were the conversations during our kitchen time. I loved that bonding time and learning family history time. Ammon, Carter, and I are not to the family history stories yet (too busy with their iPads and such) but we will get there! Just being together baking and cooking is wonderful enough.

Carter fixed a tasty Turkey-fried rice that I carried to school last week, yet I have no photos. It was admirable none the less. One reason I don’t have a photo is because they prepared it at 8:30 one night while I was doing lesson plans for school. Ammon has baked twice this past week while during “down time”, and  I’ve been free to snap some pics. Ammon made some blueberry scones with a biscuit recipe last week; they rivaled Bojangles’ Bo-Berrys. On Friday night we mixed and placed homemade biscuits in the fridge for this AM’s breakfast. They were AWESOME. Today’s breakfast was treat for me since I have been working with a calorie deficit since July 21. We had biscuits, fruit salad / ambrosia ( a Nanny Caylor -learned treat) , grits, and a breakfast casserole ( eggs, ground sausage, and tater tots ) . I was in “Breakfast Hog Heaven” !!

Baking with my children is such a blessing. Whenever I bake and give some culinary advice, I channel my Nanny, and know she would be proud that the Alexander-Caylor cooks live on with the Caylor-Browns during baking and cooking time.

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Pianos : Haven’s Seasons of their intrigue

. Education, Family, Learning, Music, piano, Preschool Unit Plans . , , , , , , , ,

I have a cousin who got an upright piano when she was 9 years old. I was 5 years old at the time. I was intrigued with her playing. No one in my family (not even her parents) was musically inclined, so neither my parents nor hers became mentors for Little Haven (LOL…. some of you probably don’t know that until my dad, Haven <6 ft. 4 inches>, died when I was 16, I was “Little Haven”…. still short of course but not being compared to Daddy) . I would peck out some notes from time to time when I visited her house, and she finally taught me ONE SONG ; “Bone Sweet Bone” . My “musical talents” were channeled into the French horn many years later where I became good enough to be 1st chair in high school 3 out of 4 years, District Band placement (5 years in a row), Solo & Ensemble ribbon winner, etc (never made All -State… LOL). However, I’ve always been intrigued with the piano. 

Fast forward to 2012 in the Caylor-Brown household with Haven, Sean, Carter & Ammon. Sean had a keyboard that he had bought but never learned how to play, and I hauled it out of storage into the Bonus Room for Ammon & Carter’s preschool, music lessons. They tried to concentrate but I found myself on it the most pecking out “Jingle Bells”, “Happy Birthday”, and simple, one-handed songs. One evening, I finished up the kitchen chores, walked upstairs into the Bonus Room, and one of the two or perhaps both children (they covered for each other) had walked on the keyboard and snapped off a key! They were reprimanded, but they didn’t care, and I put the keyboard away. 

2022 – Ammon takes an interest in the piano. A kind friend from church, Sierra Boyd, offers to give Ammon free lessons during the school year. Ammon accepts. Here at the house, Ammon practiced on the keyboard which we had “repaired” by replacing the snapped-off key. No matter what time of the day/ evening Ammon played, I would stop and enjoy the sounds of the keyboard “dreaming” of one day having a piano in our midst.

August 2023. While at school, Sean texts me about a “Piano to Give Away!” that was on Facebook. We all agreed that it would fit nicely in our living room. We simply had to find moving people to safely get the piano to our house. I was at school, so Sean began the communications. The piano arrived at our house on Friday evening (August 18, 2023!). It is even nicely tuned to be over 50 years old. I know the piano is first and foremost for Ammon, but I fell in love with it immediately. Carter is even interested in lessons now as well. Would you like to guess Haven’s inaugural tune?….. Weeeell, it was bum, bum, bum……. “Bone Sweet Bone”. The space where the piano sits looks as though it was waiting for the piano for these almost 19 years of living here.

As I close this blog entry, I simply want to give thanks to God for placing this opportunity in front of us and giving me an opportunity to, perhaps, fulfill a childhood dream of mine of learning how to play the piano ; a 52 years old dream! I hope and pray that, if you want, God will bless you with an opportunity to fulfill a dream or goal that you’ve had stored in your heart for a while. God is great and sometimes “mysterious” in His timing. 

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Dublin Attractions- Part 1

. Family, Family Travel, Ireland, Irish History . , , , , , , , , ,

Dublin Attractions – Part 1

During our Ireland summer 2023 adventure, we would stay put in Dublin almost every other day. The traveling days were exhausting, so we all needed rest. Quite a few museums in Dublin are 100% free to tour, but they do ask for donations. The National Museum of Ireland-Natural History was a variable “step back into time” experience. The building is 2020’s updated, but it has not changed much in over 100 years. This section of this blog entry is dedicated to the extinct Giant Irish Deer / Irish Elk. The skeletons of these Ice Age mammals adorn many castles and museums throughout Ireland. All four of us were mesmerized by their skeletons. Check out Ireland’s plankton eating shark, the Basking Shark too.

A tour of Dublin Castle, however, is not free. The name “Dublin Castle” sounds a bit deceiving, right? Or, to Haven, Dublin Castle’s one, Medieval-style tower lends the idea of the Middle Ages. However, 95 % of the castle is Georgian in architecture. Dublin’s original, medieval castle is underground. When the majority of the Norman Castle burned in 1684, only one Medieval tower remained and city architects decided the complex would be rebuilt in “modern architecture” what was then, of course, Georgian – the British time period of the 4 King Georges of Great Britain 1714-1837. Some of you know that I am a language nerd, sooooooo ….. Dublin is Old-Irish Gaelic “Dubh Linn”. It means Black Pool. Unbeknownst to the general public, there is a river under Dublin Castle and the streets as well. The river is the River Poddle. Through hundreds of years, the river was rerouted around and under Dublin structures as it flows to the River Liffey. When the Middle Ages people created a fortress on the spot of today’s Dublin Castle the River Liffey and River Poddle were almost converging on that spot. Standing on concrete surrounded by 20th & 21st Century buildings you have NO IDEA about these things. Dublin Castle is so proud of an exhibition from Rome, Italy, so we snapped a few shots. Italy’s Davide Rivalta’s bronze lioness roams in the upper courtyard of Dublin Castle. The piece is part of an exhibition, called Grazing in Lucan, & is a collaboration between Rome’s National Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art and Dublin Castle.

Our Dublin Castle guide is showing us how the fortress appeared some 800 years ago. Once again, no one can see Dublin Castle’s Medieval section unless they take the underground tour.