Today, I am Thankful for...

By Daniel Johns

This compilation of humor, with the sheer wit of the repartee between Jerilyn O'Brien Stone and all the people she touches, represents a treasure trove of light-hearted banter and, as a bonus, frankly, some good lessons in parenthood, spousehood, and personhood. There are also some very powerful passages included, scattered here and there, that will generate tears for many readers, who will be better people for having read them.

Jeri is the mother of a profoundly disabled son—her oldest child—and two very bright daughters, one teen and one pre-teen. Her children and husband clearly bring tremendous pride and pleasure to her world, though her heart has room for still more. So Jeri is also a tremendously caring, highly-skilled teacher of special-needs children. It seems to be the guardianship and edification of these children that fills that last compartment of her huge heart with joy and purpose.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Daniel Johns
• Release date: Nov 8, 2011
• ISBN: 9781466034495

Daniel Johns

Daniel Lee Johns was born and raised in Florida, and currently lives in Tallahassee. After earning a paralegal degree and working for a large law firm for several years, he earned both BS and MS degrees in criminology, and also nearly completed a PhD in the same field. He has been an editor for many years, and an author of mostly academic papers. After a twenty-two year hiatus, he returned to the fiction genre in 2010. An avid singer-songwriter, he is also a published musician.

Book preview

Today, I am Thankful for…

Compiled and Edited by Daniel Lee Johns

SpectrumArts Publishing

SpectrumArts Group

1420 Sharon Road

Tallahassee, FL 32303

Smashwords Edition

Published by exclusive agreement with Jerilyn O'Brien Stone

Copyright 2011 by Daniel Lee Johns

Cover Design by Daniel Lee Johns

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

A word from the Editor:

Today, I am Thankful for… is pretty much a Facebook diary. It’s a journal of several very tender miscellaneous ramblings punctuating a whole lot of very funny, transcripted conversations between Oregonian Jerilyn O’Brien Stone and her husband, her daughters, her mute son, her relatives, her coworkers, and even her special-needs students. All of these were plucked from Jeri’s Facebook status updates and her Facebook notes—the entire boatload having been posted within about six months.

I have never met Jeri in person, but we became Facebook friends through some common acquaintances, and I like her very much. Jeri is the mother of a profoundly disabled son—her oldest child—and two very bright daughters, one teen and one pre-teen. Her children and husband clearly bring tremendous pride and pleasure to her world, though her heart has room for still more. So Jeri is also a tremendously caring, highly-skilled teacher of special-needs children. It seems to be the guardianship and edification of these children that fills that last compartment of her huge heart with joy and purpose.

This compilation of humor, with the sheer wit of the repartee between Jeri and all those in her circle, represents a treasure trove of light-hearted banter and, as a bonus, frankly, some good lessons in parenthood, spousehood, and personhood. There are also some very powerful writings included, scattered here and there, that will generate tears for many readers, who will be better people for having read them.

This seems like a good place to paint an image of Jerilyn for readers. But I’ve never met her, so it’s hard to come up with an effective personal description, other than what she tells people on Facebook. Thank God for those silly list/quiz requests people are always bombarded with by their friends! This, then, is a silly list Jeri filled out of 101 things that all her Facebook friends now know about her, whether they really wanted to or not.

1. Name: Jerilyn Joanne O'Brien Stone

2. Age: 35

3. Zodiac sign: Sagittarius

4. Male or Female: female 

5. Hair color: Light Brown

6. Tall or short: 5' 3 and three quarters...probably short considering I count fractions of an inch…

…Nah. This list is really long, and, frankly, kinda boring. If you really want to see the rest of it, refer to Appendix A at the back of the book. Sure, it’ll rehash all the goofy interests and worthless minutia that bored people share with one another on social networking sites. But there’s much more to Jerilyn Stone than that. In her parlance, a really lot more.

Yes, this book is designed to make you laugh. It’s in the humor genre, like books by Erma Bombeck and Dave Barry. But the person who wrote the content—Jerilyn—is not a comedienne. She comes by her sense of humor through a difficult life, and she is blessed with an irreverent wit as a coping strategy.

The first two sections, Broken, and About Mikey, are an introduction, in her own words, to the heart and mind of Jerilyn. They are hard to read—they will make you cry if you’re human—because they weren't intended to be the least bit funny. But you simply can’t understand her strength, her morality, or her spirit without knowing this stuff. And after that…the remainder of the book consists almost entirely of daily Facebook status updates, and it’s all awesome. Like, totally.

If you just hate reading serious, thought-provoking, heart-warming stuff, you can skip Broken and About Mikey, and move on to the humorous content. But you won’t really understand, and that would be a shame. And to all readers, I offer this small piece of advice: If, at first, you don’t find each journal snippet instantly amusing…read on! The family Stone's affectionate irreverence toward each other grows on you, and in no time you will feel invested in their lives.

For the remainder of the book, everything you read will be authored by Jerilyn, not me, your humble compiler/editor. Ordinarily, an editor compulsively corrects errors, like punctuation and grammar and…well, book things. In this case, though, I've elected to keep much of Jeri's particular writing style intact, because it all seems so representative of her personality to me, and also because Internet chat and texting and email-style writing simply don't follow the editor's style guide.

There was considerably more material available than I’ve included, here, so I hope I’ve chosen well which posts to share with you. Enjoy!

Daniel Lee Johns

BROKEN…

There are moments...countless moments...when shame overtakes me, when guilt washes over me like a giant tidal wave, when it crashes into me with such force that I am left breathless and it feels as if a cold, steel fist is squeezing my heart. I feel so guilty. Guilty that I'm not quite all there, not quite whole, guilty that I put up so many walls, guilty that I need  to be tough, impenetrable, guilty that I'm...broken. I'm ashamed. Ashamed that because of things that happened to me years before I ever met him, Ry gets stuck with this...this mess, this marred soul, this scarred heart, this...me. You know what makes it worse? That Ry loves me so, that he thinks I'm perfect, that he believes me to be so much more than I really am. It hurts that Ry thinks I'm special, and sweet, and kind. It kills me that I'm not all those things for him.

He thinks I saved HIM. He says that I make him want to be more, to try harder, to give everything he has. He tells me I'm the best person he knows, and that he wishes I could see myself through his eyes...Then I tell him that he obviously needs to get his eyes checked and he's not all that bright...because I'm mean like that...and because his unwarranted praise embarrasses me, makes me feel worse than I already do. Guess what I'm saying, what I'm asking for, are your prayers. If you are a praying person, I ask you to pray that I can be a better person, be worthy of all Ry's praise, be more...and be less scared all of the time. And if you happen to be more of a sending good vibes person than a person of prayer...well, I'll take those, too.

***

ABOUT MIKEY…

I get asked daily what happened to Mikey. I don't mind at all sharing, but it is too hard to relive the very worst days of my life every single day, too painful keep thinking about his past filled with so much suffering when we should be focused on today's blessings and joys. I thought it best just to type it out one last time as a note anyone can see, rather than dozens and dozens of private emails.  

The day before he turned 20 months, Mikey came down with a slight fever and a rash. We took him to the doctor's. They believed the rash to be a reaction to his vaccinations. His rash got worse, we called the