General Safety Tips:

___ Place child-resistant covers on all electrical outlets.

___ Install safety gates at top and bottom of stairs.

___ Don't use baby walkers because they have been known to have caused serious injuries to babies. Use stationary exercisers instead.

___ Keep all dangerous chemicals out of reach of children.

___ Shorten curtain and blind cords.

___ Install smoke detectors on each floor of your home, especially near sleeping areas. * Be sure to change batteries each year.

___ Keep all small objects away from young children. (This includes tiny toys and balloons.)

___ Use corner bumpers on furniture and fireplace-hearth edges.

___ Know names of all plants in case a child eats one of them.

___ Be sure that furnaces, fireplaces, wood-burning stoves, space heaters, and all gas appliances are vented properly.

___ Place screened barriers around fireplaces, radiators, and portable space heaters.

___ Keep firearms and ammunition safely locked away.

___ Secure unsteady furnishings.

___ Check your house for lead and asbestos. If you detect either of these substances, contact a professional. Any house built before 1978 is at risk for lead paint.

Protect your kids rooms:

___ Ensure that your crib meets national safety standards.

___ Place guards on windows and stops on all doors.

___ Make sure your baby's crib is sturdy and has no loose or missing hardware.

___ Make sure that mattress fits snugly.

___ Be sure crib sheet fits snugly.

___ Never put stuffed animals or heavy blankets in crib with your infant.

___ Never leave your baby unattended on changing table.

___ Remove mobiles and other hanging toys from crib as soon as your child can reach up and touch them.

February 14, 1997

It is fitting that I should write this story on Valentines Day, for this is a story of two broken hearts; healed and mended, then melted together as one--in an instant. This is a story of True Love.

Anyone who comes from a broken family understands pain of divorce. I was twenty-seven years old when my parents divorced, and while some people think that a person shouldn't be "affected" by such things once they are adults, I can assure you--I WAS! I was shocked when my parents divorced. I had no forewarning in natural. But, on day that my dad told my mom that he was moving out, I felt a great anxiety in my spirit--so great that I told my husband, "Something is terribly wrong in California. I want to phone home." Considering fact that I was three thousand miles away, on a remote island in Northern Canada, when I felt this anxiety, you can appreciate that I was deeply affected.

Pain and confusion became constant companions as I tried to "understand" what had happened--what right did he have to leave my mother? Whose standard was he using to exercise his right to leave her? What had she done that was so terrible that he could not live with her? I had questions and I asked them of nearly everyone around me. I asked God same questions, and in so doing, I realized that my own life was in quite a mess. As I came into a better alignment with God, I searched Bible for "the answer" to all my questions about my dad. Since he had been a Baptist minister at one time, I felt certain that he would know and obey what Bible said about such an important issue.

About two years after divorce, whole family gathered in California--for one of those BIG attempts to bring reconciliation--I felt certain that dad would listen to God's Word. I reached for my Bible and said, "Dad, look at what God has to say about what you are doing." Before I could find carefully selected passage of scripture that would straighten this mess out, he stood up and loudly cursed me, Bible and whole family. Then he walked out. Needless to say we were all in shock. The shock of that cursing lasted a long time--eighteen years for myself, and twenty years for my brother and sister.

Eighteen years is a long time. Think about it. It generally takes eighteen years to graduate from high school. A whole "lifetime" of events takes place in eighteen years. During those years, contact with my dad was minimal. A card from him on my birthday, Christmas cards, odd phone call which always stirred up pain. Someone would hear about something that he was doing and he would again become topic of our conversation for weeks. My mother never stopped talking about him. She never let him go.

My mom maintained her relationship with God throughout this long painful separation. She read her Bible, went to church, cared about us kids and loved her grandkids. She worked as a secretary and saved her money so she wouldn't be a burden on anyone when she retired. But, always, she was obsessed with talking about my dad.

I would say that most of our conversations about him were judgemental. After all, we read our Bibles; we knew that what he had done was wrong. She had done nothing that Bible sanctioned as reason for divorce. By time of his third marriage, we knew he wasn't coming back to her. Still, his actions and their effect on our lives were frequent topics of our conversations.

After many years, I gave up hope for my dad to ever be reconciled to his family. I doubted he was even a Christian. I felt he was a totally lost, immoral, unstable, unsavory person. That was a very dark time for me. Gradually, I got used to darkness in my own soul--it seemed normal.

Mother did retire and she moved from California to Canada to be near my family. She had missed out on much of growing up of my five children, and she wanted to get to know them. She bought a condominium two blocks from my house and kids enjoyed having "Gran" live so close. One year after moving here, she was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig's disease.