It's Finally Here!

If you all are getting a little tired of me talking about this book, well, it is finally here! After years of dreaming, rough drafts, starting over, ditching the whole idea, beginning again one more time, making it fiction, finally realizing it should be real, here we go.

FROM THE BOOK JACKET:

In 1950, Myra Yarborough, age six, finds herself transported from rural North Carolina to the NC State School for the Blind in the state’s capitol of Raleigh. The family she loves seem far away as there are no phones in her home and a six week long stretch between visits. As America is changing, the school for the blind has an archaic feel and the housemothers seem to have stepped right out of one of Grimm’s fairy tales. Follow the challenges of growing up in an environment that seems resistant to change. Many people and friends contribute to Myra’s search for balance between a blind and sighted existence, between smiles and tears, and between opinions and reality. As you follow Myra’s growing years, you will get a glimpse of being blind through this perspective, and come away with a new understanding of blindness in the 1950s, as well as what it is like today.

To say putting the book out there does not make me a little nervous would be an understatement. Yet, it is with tremendous excitement I present this book, hoping you will enjoy it and will take away something useful to add to your own walk through life.

It is my hope and plan to begin marketing through local book stores, however, until I am able to accomplish this, please check out the on-line ordering procedure below for a hard copy or an E book. I am hoping this may be something worth your sharing with friends who may need a little smiling, or even a little tears. Perhaps it will help to bridge a gap between the blind and sighted communities while it brings encouragement and hope along the way.

Thank you so much for sharing my blogs and facebook posts as I have been working on this project. I will be posting from time to time what is happening with the book, as well as continuing my blogs which I hope help show the day-to-day activities and experiences we all go through together.

Lulu.com is the self-publishing website that I used to create my book. The book is now available as an ebook and a paperback book through Lulu.com. Please click the link below to purchase a copy!

Paperback: 
http://www.lulu.com/shop/myra-yarborough-debruhl/changing-places/paperback/product-22046891.html

Ebook:
http://www.lulu.com/shop/myra-yarborough-debruhl/changing-places/ebook/product-22046852.html

In the near future, my book will also be available through other retail distributors such as amazon.com, as well as Barns and Noble. I will keep you updated when this happens!

Thank you for your support!!

Special Program

I remember when I first thought of applying for a guide dog. Proudly, I walked away with a Golden Retriever named Holly. She was three years old and was donated to the school because her family was breaking up. I walked away with a real prize from their marriage, yet never really sat down and thought about her life before she was my dog.

Holly and Mego

As Mego came into my life, I began to realize just a little of how difficult it must be to part with a puppy you have loved for at least a year. Could I do this? Give up a puppy I had loved and taught all the things young dogs need to know? During Mego’s life I met a lady who really enlightened me of the selfless gift from someone who puts in their time and their hearts into the dog that becomes the guide dog that walks a person through the paths of life.

Mego as a puppy

Mego with his puppy raiser

Vivi is my third guide dog gift. Now I am more sensitive than ever concerning those puppy raisers who help these wonderful animals become the loving guide they were created to be. I missed Vivi’s third birthday in getting out this blog, but here are my thoughts as I look at the entire process that took place even before Vivi was born.

Vivi in training 

Vivi with her puppy raiser  

                                   

Puppy Raiser

I heard about this program where I could get a puppy

I could take him home and keep him just as though he would be mine;

Give him all my love and teach him everything he'd need

To grow up to be a guide dog for the blind.

A very special program, so I reached out my hand;

And I held this little puppy--and I loved him just like mine!

Now I'm searching deep inside me to find the strength that I need

To let him be a guide dog for the blind.

Did I do it good enough?

Teach you all the right stuff;

Please don’t look back or I might cry,

You must go with your trainer there

Do you know how much I care

I didn't know it would be so hard to say good-bye.

Blindness

I heard about this program where I could get a guide dog

To take me all those places where I cannot go alone;

Brand new taste of freedom! Almost as good as seeing.

Now my dog and me?--We'll make it on our own.

A very special program, so I reached out my hand

I'm holding to the harness of the one I'm so proud of!

Now I'm searching deep inside me to find the words that I need

To say thank you for such a special gift of love!

A gift that keeps on giving,

A special way of living,

A heart that is so willing to be a guide;

Helping me to see

How it was meant to be.

Two hearts that walk together, side by side.

A very special program, Two people reach out their hands,

Intangible touch of love of a unique kind.

I thank you beyond measure, your gift truly a treasure,

As you see this way of giving to the blind.

Holly, Mego, and Vivi

ABOUT THE BOOK

In case anyone may be wondering whatever happened to me or the book I have been talking about for quite some time … here’s the update. In about two weeks it will be ready! I know you aren’t as excited as I am about all this, but after learning the stages and work it takes to get to this point it is a little like a daydream coming true. Once it is out there I will send you an update as how to get a copy. IN the meantime, here’s just a little teaser, just in hopes you will remember and want to join me in this endeavor as life still is going on, in and after the book. Thanks to all who have encouraged me.

Now, from the book jacket:

In 1950, Myra Yarborough, age six, finds herself transported from rural North Carolina to the NC State School for the Blind in the state’s capitol of Raleigh. The family she loves seem far away as there are no phones in her home and a six week long stretch between visits. As America is changing, the school for the blind has an archaic feel and the housemothers seem to have stepped right out of one of Grimm’s fairy tales. Follow the challenges of growing up in an environment that seems resistant to change. Many people and friends contribute to Myra’s search for balance between a blind and sighted existence, between smiles and tears, and between opinions and reality. As you follow Myra’s growing years, you will get a glimpse of being blind through this perspective, and come away with a new understanding of blindness in the 1950s, as well as what it is like today.

Still more Blind Things

Since it is a rainy and dreary appearing day I thought I’d try to help someone smile by reliving a few interesting things that happened in my life this past December. I will not mention the time Vivi and I stood in a department for fifteen minutes waiting for a lady who said she would be “right back,” or the other helper who told me that scarves were “right over there,” or even the clerk who asked me if I was sure I knew what I was buying. We won’t mention the server at Chic Filet who told me to go find a table and she would bring me my order of grilled chicken nuggets and fruit cup. Just suffice it to say she had disappeared from the table Vivi found for us  before I could let her know I did not order fried nuggets and fries. All these things did really happen, and I smile about them as I think of them now; hope you will smile too.

… December

This night I am wrapping gifts. I find a big bag perfect for one of the gifts. The bag seems to appear in my closet from nowhere. I am now wondering if I have put that gift in a Victoria Secrets Bag, and whether it is a tensile Christmas scene or skimpy dressed little model under my tree.

…

Always I put Braille on my to and from Christmas gifts. No one gets to pick up their gift and shake it unless they crawl under the tree and bring it out for me to read. This year I put two Brailed labeled gifts in one family’s bag, not realizing the person ignored the second Braille name and kept both gifts.

…

I was a little disappointed when I brought home two very light pink pillowcases, until the wash when I fixed the problem by not paying attention and added in a red shirt.

…

In that same wash I put in my black jeans which fit tight. I thought they were my blue ones which fit just right. Oops!  Well, at least I surely won’t have to iron them.

…

I asked the waitress for more water. She sat it down in a new glass on the table. Not realizing that she had already put a new straw in the fresh water, I took the straw from my other glass. When I touched the glass to drink I realized there were two straws. The next time I raised my glass to drink, I thought it was cool that I did not have to touch the top of the glass with my finger in order to find where my straw was; surely my mouth would hit one of them. You guessed it, I missed both straws and my second glass of water flowed down my shirt. There was more ice than water.

…

Vivi and I had walked flawlessly from the mall entrance to the Apple store. Vivi had surprised me by finding the store by herself as we had only been there twice together, the last time six months earlier. Relying on her confident stride leaving the store, we increased our speed and whizzed right past a lady who, if driving, would have been too far into my lane, not looking at all where she was going. Suddenly she realized something white brushed her leg. Her voice was as loud as a siren as she leaned toward me and screamed close to my face. Vivi didn’t miss a beat but kept on wagging her tail as she charged on toward the door. My tongue hurt after biting it to keep from saying something mean to the woman. Is this how drivers feel?

  …

Pepper? … in my pop corn?

…

 

 

TBT from journal

 

January 1, 2008

It’s quiet and peaceful inside my heart. There are no problems to clutter up my communication with my own soul, so I am free to truly feel and enjoy this large portion of emotions God has given me. Because of Him I have lived to be sixty-four years old, to have a family to love, and a sweet black lab angel lying beside me ready to jump up just in case I might think of moving. I wish I could explain to some human how it feels to have a moment of peace like this. It’s like hearing the sigh of a tiny baby sleeping, or a beautiful song that drops chill bumps from heaven into a heart. Then there is a mom somewhere exhausted knowing she still must get up and finish the dishes but lies down for a quick rest on the sofa, only to notice the hands of her husband placing a soft throw over her tired body, warming her through and through as she hears the table being cleared. It’s the place in a strong man’s heart that melts when his child smiles; it’s every peaceful place I have ever experienced or read about all wrapped into a New Year’s package delivered today. It’s because there is truly a God and he  loves me and my family and the special friends he has allowed me to know.

There is not one of my friends or family I can think of today without loving them. There’s Mom with her eighty-seven years that have molded her life making it ready for heaven. I was fifty years old before I knew how shy she is. She’s just a little southern Baptist girl inside looking for a day like this one.

As I feel the warmth blowing from the vents in my heart I turn toward Jesus and pray that my friends and family experience such a time as this on this brand New Year’s Day.

It is with a heart filled with peace I begin to allow myself once more to touch the tender places inside me, even the tearful places I can only touch while God holds my hand; childhood tears that can still live if I let them, and I choose to let them only because those are the places that write sad poems or songs, so we can understand how to smile. Frankly it feels good to pick up a day of sadness and hold it in the hands of understanding, only because now seeing it clearly, stroking it’s pain, I can  put it away until my heart needs that kind of tenderness once more to remind me of God’s amazing grace.

 

2015

Today it is a sweet yellow lab, white like angel wings, who lies next to me just in case I think about moving. Pictures of my family grace my living room walls and heart. Has anything changed while the earth has circled the sun for seven more years? Certainly not God, and thank him for that! This year I feel it most important that I step out from the walls of my journal and let those I care about so much know how special they have been and are in my life! For those of you who have taken your time to read this, you are one of those people!

 

His Name is Daddy

No furniture was needed as his presence filled the room.

Everyone remembers his birthday.

He was stronger than John Wayne,

Yet often as tender as a child who doesn’t want to step on the daisies.

He loved the land, horses, cars, cows, tractors, and his grandchildren.

There was never a toy, a bike, a tractor or a car he couldn’t fix.

His mind was a virtual computer with calculator and endless gigs of memory.

His son, truly his moment of joy

For he never had time to be a boy.

Many the story Larry could tell,

Guns by their sides, dogs on the trails,

How to make beauty from wood and some nails.

Seasons came and seasons went.

He always said the next one would surely be better, and each one was.

 

Though I was blind, I know Daddy believed that if I had wanted to, I could have put a tractor together as good as he could.

He drove a hundred miles while running a fever, just to hear me sing in church one Christmas.

When very sick, he wondered out loud if we would all forget him if he was not around.

Happy birthday, Daddy!

 

 

Thoughts about Childhood Diseases

At the NC State School for the Blind in the 1950’s, it was very common to catch all sorts of cold germs and childhood illnesses. There was an infirmary on campus where we lived while in school. Most of us enjoyed a short stay in the infirmary if we were not too sick to enjoy it, where we could lie in bed, listen to the radio all day long, and drink juice and eat chicken soup. I think back now on my times in that particular place.  

 

In the second grade I wrote this childish poem:

 

I had some little measle bumps as pesky as could be.

But when I started to scratch them the nurse caught me.

She put me into bed and gave me an old pill.

All day long I felt very ill.

It was late at night when I started to cough.

I went to get the butcher knife to cut those measles off.

But the nurse heard me and spanked me instead,

Took away my butcher knife and put me back to bed.

 

My second-grade teacher, Ms. Ethel Lewis, liked the poem and encouraged me to keep writing, although this is the only early poem I kept.

 

Anyway, back to childhood diseases. Lots of my friends and students at the school were there because our mothers contracted measles during the pregnancies, resulting in the germ settling in the eyes of the unborn child. Today it is usually mandatory by physicians for expectant mothers or, in fact, everyone, to get the measles vaccine.

One night after spending a weekend at home, I told my housemother that my brother had the mumps over that weekend. Immediately arrangements were made for me to be sent home before the disease spread all over campus; it was too late. My friend Ann, ended up in the infirmary a day after I left for home, and  I had not been home but a few days before my face swelled and I ended up in bed while there. For some reason, the doctor in that day thought a good dose of Milk of Magnesia was in order. As Mom prepared the dose, for the first time, I thought it might be better to be at school in the infirmary. Anyway, I fussed and spit the laxative right back at her, for which my Daddy was furious. Even though he was not supposed to get close to me, he fixed another dose and forced it into my mouth. I swallowed the awful stuff and Daddy came down with the mumps. He got over them quickly, just in time to get chicken pox. The small town local paper thought this worthy of an article.

Of course I got chicken pox too. Even though this disease seemed to be less threatening, it seemed to always last an entire week. I didn’t write a poem about the chicken pox, but I do remember being in the infirmary. One of the teachers, Miss Agnes Ellis, visited me. She brought me a book with large pictures. The book was “The Ugly Duckling.” Thinking about it now, even though it was a gift of love and I did enjoy it so much, I smile when I realize surely chicken pox can cause anybody to appear as an “ugly duckling.”

In 1955, we had to get written permission at school to be given the Salk vaccine for polio. There were quite a few students at the school who had suffered polio in early childhood and had some permanent effects, mostly those of limping and some wearing braces. This was one disease nobody wanted to get, and my parents very willingly gave their permission for me to receive this new immunization.

Even though there were what we called diseases such as “three-day measles,” poison ivy/oak, colds, flu, sore throats, whooping cough, no really serious diseases seemed to penetrate our little school world. My mom and daddy were positive I had whooping cough when little, leaving me with a chronic cough to this day. As a small child the housemother gave me horehound candy many nights to try to soothe the throat and cough. It tasted like kerosene smells to me, yet, even today, it is widely used for medicinal purposes, and many people enjoy its taste. Check it out on the web; it has quite a history all its own.

They performed tonsillectomies and adenoidectomies at the infirmary. My parents gave permission for me to have my tonsils removed, with the condition that they be notified when it happened. They were notified after it was over. Mama mailed a package to me with the most beautiful doll I ever had, and she even had a change of clothes. I wish I had kept her; to me she was prettier than Barbie.

My daughter, Christi, did have chicken pox, and I think Kevin has now had the chicken pox vaccine. Kevin had scarlet fever resulting from a Strep throat, immediately cured with Penicillin.

As I think back now from when my mother was young in the 1920’s through today, it is amazing to see all the treatments for serious childhood diseases that have been developed. Yet there are horrible diseases still in our world both in children and adults. Maybe in another hundred years more cures will be found, in fact, more cures than diseases, especially those that affect children.