The Big C ate my Blog

I wrote this to explain why I have not been keeping up my blog. In fact for a while I forgot I had one...

Blinded by the Gold

During the Winter of Five Snowpocalalypses in Boston, in a chemo-induced cabin fever my husband and I viewed many DVD’s from the library. 

It has been nearly a year since my husband’s sudden diagnosis and treatment started, requiring chemo, radiation, surgery, more chemo and surgery. We kind of moved into the bedroom of our flat because sitting for him was less comfortable than being in bed. So we moved the rabbit ears and decoder box for digital broadcast into our bedroom because we don’t have cable or pay TV. We refuse to support cable cartels making us pay for unwanted channels. We hooked our dinosaur equipment up to our flat screen formerly only used for videos. Now we were wired. On cold days we could keep the heat down low; our bedroom was the warmest room in the house because of old ductwork, and the heat generated by our two laptops kept us warm. We had to give up our two cats when we moved into the apartment in our rabbit warren-like neighborhood per order of the landlord, but let it go!

While the Academy Award hoopla was going on we watched a movie from the library’s B section; The Blind Side made in 2009 starred one of our favorite Hollywood heroines, Sandra Bullock. You may recall, (it seems nearly everybody has already seen the movies we’re just catching up on) it is a true story of redemption when a wealthy Tennessee family inspired by a mother’s heart takes in and finally adopts a black homeless teenager in Memphis. Not far into the movie I strongly identified with Bullock because I myself have morphed into a she-bear more than once in defense of my cubs.

Big Mike, the gentle-giant type, was so good with a basket ball he was given the opportunity to go to a white-bread Christian prep school in spite of his poor academic record. Our youngest son, except for pigmentation, was a lot like Big Mike. In high school he was 6’2’ weighed 315 lbs. but played no sports, preferring a computer screen where he learned how to build combat robots.

Somehow the daughter of a Harvard football trainer had managed to raise three sons none of whom played contact sports, the older two preferring tennis and the youngest moved slowly but gracefully like Big Mike. But, my “baby” was growing taciturn since he transferred from Christian to public school in his teens and underachieved in most classes (like many of his teachers…but let that go).

Big Mike’s biological mom, had born many children for the State who took them from her, including Big Mike, because of her addiction to the drugs she used due to the pain of serial abandonment and loss.

In our roomy suburb I did not fully appreciate how some things on the Internet were polluting my child’s mind and fueled his rebellion. It was sheer relief when we shipped him off to college in Texas.

In my empty nest, with no boys to mow our considerable lawns in summer, nor shovel snow in the winter of ’07, real-estate values were going south rapidly. We put our house on the market thinking we might go to the inner city to help “the young black man”. This was the theme of a song my husband wrote. I quipped, “But how can we, Mr. and Mrs. Vanilla, be of any help?” Had I seen the Blind Sided movie, which did not come out until the following year, I might have had my epiphany sooner.

But at that time I was focusing on missteps in the Middle East and in particular, Israel. A magazine arrived one day with a cover photo that rocked my world. A youth dressed in shorts and T-shirt, wearing the same kind of socks and Vans sneakers my youngest son always wore, with close cropped hair like his, sat in a chair with his head leaning all the way back. His legs limply rested on the floor of the second floor dorm room which apparently had taken a hit from a rocket in Tel Aviv. The exterior walls were gone. Whether he was alive or dead you could not tell, but a thin trickle of blood ran from his nose down his chalky skin. His mouth gaped, his hand rested on rebar bent in the shape of a shepherd’s crook. Over him stood a young helmeted aid worker looking back for help, his expression said all; He is unsure if he was dealing with a survivor or a corpse.

This photo so stunned me I had to call my son at college in the middle of the day just to hear his voice and convince myself that the subject was not my son. I was so relieved to hear my son’s voice that after the call I immediately and profusely thanked God that my son was safe in Texas. I felt an immediate response from Him in my heart…”But that is my child and I want you to pray for him as you would for your own children.” I got it. That’s the best way I can explain why I care about Israel. I do because God cares for them like a firstborn child.

So in watching this familiar situation in the movie, I was blind-sided like mama Bullock who so felt the unspoken need of this young black man, she opened her life, home, family and wallet to a very sweet but lost soul who just needed some love and direction, in which mama Bullock excelled.

I loved the scene at the football game where Big Mike is taking a verbal and physical pounding from a smaller but highly skilled opponent. That kid’s redneck father sat a few rows behind Bullock, his mindset was the headwater of the stream of verbal abuse and ugly racism spouted by him and his son.

“Sticks and stones” mama Bullock reminded her children to ignore the nasty comments, but ultimately she could take it no longer. She stood up turned and called to the loudmouth…”Hey!… Deliverance!...Zip it up or I’ll come zip it up for ya!” This coming from a beautiful woman dressed impeccably, wearing high heels in a stadium stunned the bigoted blighter into silence. Score one for momma bear!

Where am I going with this? Back to the Oscars, a hypocritical and orgiastic display of self gratification for making tons of money while spinning stories. Movies like Fifty Shades of Grey made millions while sending out a dangerous message to our youth. Selma took the story of Martin Luther King and twisted it into reverse racism, co-opting good, worse yet, stealing God’s true glory giving it to man. I could go on... but let it go!

Update Jan. 28, 2016   I stand corrected! I actually saw Selma this week, got it at the library, and I loved it. So sorry the star, David Oyelowo, did not get an Oscar last year. He deserved it. I had a negative response to the Oscar night representation of the film and the rap song lyrics but the film portrayed MLK and the civil rights activists with dignity. Too bad journalists have all moved to Left Field today.

 This article appeared in the Boston Broadside March 2015 edition

MAssachusetts GOP Convention at BU Agganis Arena 3-22-14

Just getting there was a trial. I knew better than to drive and pay for parking and I hear the garage was full anyway by the time I arrived at 9 a.m. My press packet was registered through COMFLM (Commonwealth of Massachusetts Free Lance Media) Try saying that 3 times fast.

I first and foremost represent Commonwealth Covenant Keepers ( now say that 3 times fast) an un-structured organization of Judeo-Chritian believers who believe in the founding principles of this great nation which are expressed perfectly well in our Constitution.

There are a lot of issues to take issue with but you have to pick your battles or you will run out of steam before you get to the one you were born to fight.  Jeff Goins says "Write something worth fighting over, because that’s how you change things. That’s how you create art." I like that because I am an artist, not only a writer but a graduate of Mass Art where I majored in painting. I have been so interested in changing things that I have not found the time to paint much but I will post some of my visual artwork later. On to the Convention floor!

 Opening with the Presentation of Colors, National Anthem, Pledge of Allegiance but no opening prayer ?

 Plenty of room for the 1,000 no show delegates; about 2500 did spend the day doing their civic duty.

 Nobody wanted to sit behind the media platform, and they didn't have to...plenty of room!

Honor Guard with fife and drum was a nice touch. Always love the reminder of our patriotic past.

Hope Springs Eternal and bloggers not so much

My last Blog entry was just before the November 2012 election that gave us a second term of Obama.
I really was not prepared for that defeat...besides, can you call it a true defeat if you think it was an election with many instances of voter fraud? It seems as if we the electorate have been deserted like the kid in Home Alone. Are there no adults in the House? Is there no leadership who can muster a challenge to the illegitimacy of this presidency? It has become sickeningly clear that they are all too compromised to act in our behalf. There are some brave souls bucking the system...Rand Paul and Ted Cruz stand out and have literally stood up for hours of filibustering. That has given me hope and as springtime rolls around again so does the hope that we can turn this disaster around or slow it down.

 My hope is motivated by my new role as Nana. I had two new grandsons born in 2013 tripling my grandmotherly responsibilities. Mothering made me write passionate letters to the editor about the downward trend in society my kids would live in. As my 3 sons grew I began writing columns that were published mostly in the MetroWest Daily News for almost 10 years when we lived out beyond 495. After they all went off to college and stayed gone my husband and I asked ourselves how we ended up with all this grass to mow with no boys to do it and no one to shovel that long driveway? So we sold our house just as the market was bottoming out in 2007. We moved in closer to Boston where among other things I would get in to Beacon Hill more often to testify for Commonwealth Covenant Keepers. The economy kept getting worse and I had to take a full time job which kept me from the State House.

The Tea Party Revolution of 2010 was an exciting time and it seemed like we would stop this behemoth called Obamacare. Inexplicably we failed in 2012 when conservatives just could not pull the lever for a RINO, so we lost. Things have taken on a surreal quality as every day seems to bring a new affront to our lifestyle. Whether it's the trampling of our religious freedoms, our Constitution, our legal rights, our privacy or the ruination of our educational, medical, economic infrastructure while putting our unborn in debt (should they survive the womb, the most dangerous place in America with 55 million aborted).

This is why I get my "Irish" back up. Not on my watch! Grandma will not stand idly by and let them steal from my grandchildren.

So I will be at the Massachusetts GOP Convention asking questions of any candidate I can buttonhole; Uncomfortable un-PC questions like "How does your faith inform your voting?" or "What is your stand on Israel, the sanctity of life, marriage?" I already know how most will answer but they need to know someone is asking these questions. They are not a forgone conclusion to the thousands, maybe millions I represent,

the covenant keepers who still believe in accountability to God. I will be wearing my red Georgia Bull Dogs hat. Not that I'm a fan of that team; I like to think the "G" stands for God and He is One fierce opponent.

Don't Give Up the Ship!

Don’t Give Up the Ship                                                                                 October 2012

 

I’m a little Tea Party short and stout.

Here is my computer, here is my mouth.

When I am overtaxed here me shout,

November 6^th the radicals get kicked out!

In less than a month we will have a national election which will affirm or destroy the concept of America…it is that crucial. Yet where is the passion? Where are the lawn signs, stand outs or even bumper stickers? What moves the heart of the masses? You have to go outside Massachusetts to see evidence of an election because in general people have given up here in the Bay State.

 

Escape television and movies draw record numbers to the screen.  Spin a yarn about supernatural power, aliens, vampires, zombies or urban Bravehearts and consumers are down the escape chute in a flash.

For decades our college students have been co-opted by the radical left’s Marxist agenda. A relatively small minority is running our great nation off a cliff morally and economically and there isn’t much time left before it is too late to preserve the traditional values.

On the streets of Cambridge and Somerville you can walk among zombies as they shuffle from Starbucks to Chipotle celebrating Octoberfest or Riverfest or some other excuse to party and revel in pagan gods, especially Bacchus. (A bit harsh but it was annoying today when we ran into a zombie /Octoberfest parade blocking off Mass Ave.)

 

Well this is the Last Hurrah for normal people, not just in locally but across this nation, to save the American Dream. It is not about a house with two cars in the garage, but about life and liberty for our children and grandchildren. It is do or die, America, pay no attention to that MSM lackey telling you Obama is a shoe in.

 

I just returned from a family reunion in Ohio. None of us are from the battleground state except our daughter-in-law whose parents graciously loaned us their condo on Lake Erie for our far flung family to get together for a week. Our first grandchild is just learning to talk and run…we missed the walking stage because she lives on the West Coast. She is tiny and vulnerable but very active and she had the rest of us dazzled as her pink-sneakered feet shuffled along to keep up with us as we all walked to the park or out for an ice cream after dinner. Reminiscent of how a baby elephant keeps up with the herd, and how elephants are fiercely loyal with long memories, we, her grandparents, parents, aunts and uncles would guard her with our lives. She is that compelling; at twenty months every thing she does fascinates us.

So for all our baby girls and yours we must join the fight to keep the American Dream alive. Our progeny must not end up in economic slavery, bound by socialism, a failed economy, fascism, burkas, diminitude or anything resembling Orwell’s 1984 nightmare. Let those who scoff at our values roll over, pull the covers over their heads and let the adults fight this one.

 

 I learned at the Captain Oliver Hazard Perry Memorial National Park and Museum about the phrase “Don’t give up the Ship!” Perry a twenty-something naval novice pulled off a stunning victory against the Brits on Lake Erie and settled the question for the English and Canadians about our northern borders in 1812. Perry carried a handmade flag from his sinking ship to another brig which declared “Don’t give up the ship!”

Those words and that flag should be remembered and waived by patriots again in this dire hour.

 

Chris Noonan Funnell is a free-lance writer living in the Boston area. Her columns have appeared in the MetroWest Daily News, Israeli National News and others.                                                              October 7, 2012

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Condi for Veep

At this point I will take Anybody but Obama and any Veep that can get us to that end...but I really have problems with Condi on Israel and the Sanctity of Human Life.
This article was published in Israeli National News and Solomnia Blog...

Harridans of State by Chris Noonan Funnell  3/26/2010   

Congress has its Nancy Pelosi and Netanyahu has his Hillary Rodham Clinton. These liberated women are suited up and high heel shod as they stomp where no women have stomped before; beyond the pale, way beyond Code Pink, beyond what my grandmother called “the pink limit”.  

Fellow Progressives would agree, Nancy wields a mean mallet. The huge hammer with a history has been used before to decree the Welfare State is here…Out with the old and in with the new! 

The grandmother who speaks with a little girl voice has taken buttonholing to a new level. Arm twisting has greater leverage when assisted by a good pair of pumps.  

Third in line for the Presidency and according to Diane Sawyer the most powerful woman on the planet, Nancy, now seventy years old, plays hardball with the big boys. She took the mother of all mallets and pulverized that glass ceiling but unlike Hillary hardly got a hair out of place.

 

Nancy travels in style at great expense to the taxpayer. She even sends members of her family on private military flights burning her way through taxpayer dollars like there was no tomorrow.

In the tomorrow the Democrats just signed into being, our grandchildren will be standing in line for health, education and employment.  She-who-must-be-obeyed has just pulled off the equivalent of the Brinks Robbery (adjusted for inflation) on each of our grandchildren. They will stand in long lines for what we have taken for granted, behind hoards of illegals which the Progeressives plan to usher to the front of the line with a sweep of their pens and  slam of their gavels dispensing the get out of jail cards to lawbreakers whose vote they need to stay in office.

Who could resist those incentives to cross over the border? 

Meanwhile, the IRS will have drilled into our offspring’s lives so deep they will never know the giddy heights of freedom we American Dreamers once knew and frittered away watching TV when we should have been watching our wallets, borders and elected officials more closely.  

While the ink was drying on the “Health care Bill” and Nancy’s surgically altered cheeks glowed with the thrill of victory, opponents of the bill were painting a big red target on her back. www.FireNancyPelosi.com wants to make sure this is her last hurrah. 

The second part of the one-two punch is winding up as Obama lines up illegal immigrants who will be enabled to keep Obamunism in perpetuity, erasing the fear that opponents will vote them out in November and landing a knock out punch on the American Way. 

Meanwhile Hillary has other ideas though she’s a bit out of the loop from her global travels. She, like her predecessor, Condi Rice who I am not alone in suspecting harangued Ariel Sharon into a coma, are enforcers in high heels who need no battle axes. They have forcefully conveyed the bad news to Israel that her best friend, America, in the name of ‘peace’, has betrayed her and insists the tiny state hand over East Jerusalem to pacify Israel’s enemies.

All twenty two Arab states surrounding Israel, have contrived claims to the Land made Holy by the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the eternal capitol city for His people. 

Recently, while in Jerusalem, the bumbling veep, Joe Biden, stirred up a brouhaha about an Israeli announcement to build apartments in a Jerusalem suburb. How would Biden react if China suddenly pulled our loans and demanded we build no more new housing in America? … only cinder block cells from now on, one per family! 

Hillary had the chutzpah to make a 45 minute, blistering phone call to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu demanding Israel show “a serious commitment to the peace process” the anti-Semites have mapped out, a path that leads to the annihilation of the Jewish State and people. Thank God for Bibi who is able to withstand the Harridan of State , reminding Hillary ”Jerusalem is not a settlement”. Not only is it non-negotiable land belonging to Jews it is holy ground to Christians who maintain the inerrancy of the Bible. Not only will it not be relinquished by these believers, it is intended to be the political capital of Israel once more. However the history is too complicated for this column.  http://www.focusonjerusalem.com/israelgiveaway.html 

According to AIPAC, Members of the House are circulating a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton urging the administration to reaffirm the strength of the U.S.-Israel relationship and calling for any differences to be resolved amicably as befits longstanding strategic allies. Let’s hope she gets the memo. 

As I said in my article printed in the Jerusalem Post’s J-Post Blog written in August of 2005… http://cgis.jpost.com/Blogs/guest/entry/standing_in_the_gap_for_jerusalem 

The Jews giving up East Jerusalem makes about as much sense as Red Sox Nation giving up a quarter of Fenway Park to the New York Yankees. 

Chris Noonan Funnell is a free lance writer in the Boston Area

And Founder Director of Commonwealth Covenant Keepers 

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Mother Remembered

Mother in my field of dreams

I had another dream in which my Mom, now gone seven years, and I were talking. This is the second dream now that I’ve experienced her presence so powerfully that I am moved to tears to think of it. Mothers Day and spring flowers are now infused with her memory because her diagnosis of Lymphoma and her death were bracketed in one year between Mothers Days.
In each dream she looked lovely, in the first dream a little bewildered like Shoeless Joe in the movie Field of Dreams.  In the second dream she had returned to her role as my chief nurturer and listener.  We had a good talk and then she left me to carry on with my task at hand.

She fought a valiant year long battle, taking chemo concurrently with King Hussein of Jordan. She had the best of medical care, taking twelve rounds of chemo in as many months with a hospitalization for each one, finally succumbing to a lurking lung infection.

She was an independent intellectual soul who needed very little as long as it included a good book.  She was reduced in her latter months to dependency on me, the one of her four children who lived close by. I am ever grateful I was the one to support her in her toughest battle because we formed a special bond. I shopped for her food, brought her books and looked in on her so often the other elders in her apartment complex knew me well. Before her illness she had struggled with overweight but that final May she had wasted away so much I could just support her weakened frame as we walked to the car on that final trip to the Emergency Room.

The hospital staff was impressed with her hopeful attitude but in the end when hope for a cure faded so did her eyes and her humor and wit ceased to bubble to the surface as her physical shell simply wore out from the damaging cure which kept the tumor in check. No food, book nor flowers could bring a twinkle to her eye.  One thing did - words of affection.

She had been, in her youth, beautiful and vivacious with a strong resemblance to a 40’s movie star.  As a child I believed my mom had been on the silver screen whenever I saw Ann Sheridan in a movie and would exclaim, “Mom, you’re on the TV again!” She was smart too and a self-educated stay-at-home mom who convinced us that she considered her role as mother her main act and her life’s crowning achievement, a “Greatest Generation” hallmark.  It has proven to be a tough act to follow but an inspiring one.

She was the only grandparent my children had ever known having lost the others to the silent stalker, cancer that had taken so many elders from both my husband’s and my family. My own children are too young to worry about their genetic heritage and will hopefully benefit from nutritional and medical progress as well as the spiritual weapons my mother only utilized in her final months.

 
Soon my middle son will enter his fourth year of Army medical training at USUHS Medical School. As an undergraduate at Grove City College some of his professors had worked on the Human Genome Project training new recruits to enter the battlefield of disease. At USUHS in Bethesda MD young officers train in the field of medicine to serve their country.

I wonder if he will he will play a part in finding a cure for the disease that took his Nana, who invested many hours in rocking him to sleep when this mom needed a break.  She taught him to form smooth balls, pies and creations of Playdoh.  She pitched baseballs to him in the backyard and faithfully sent him cards with money to show how much she loved him as he grew older.

Surely he will treat other people’s Nana’s with the love and compassion he received in his formative years. It is with those smooth stones of security, passed on from generation to generation that a young warrior can stand tall and take on the Goliath of the day.  She bequeathed talent, passion for learning, perseverance, courage and creativity which she received from her parents and described in a poem about a trellis she watched her father build. The rose trellis was a metaphor for our family structures, like interwoven latticework, what supports our DNA, without which we would be clones or automatons.

The Trellis

Slender white strips of wood were seen
To form a sturdy wooden frame,
That held up the tender shoots of green
‘Til their promised scarlet beauty came.

The strength of the vines, time tested
The rosy blooms in all their charms
And in the end the tired trellis rested
In the vine’s supporting arms.                       Doris I.Noonan (1922-99)


My children’s generation will take the tools passed on and come against “The big C” and other foes.  The blooms on the trellis will blossom nurtured by the roots. My “field of dreams” is not inhabited by baseball heroes but by my mom and other family members who’ve played the game of life valiantly and are now cheering us on.

 

Chris Noonan Funnell, Free-lance writer

First published in the Metro West Daily News 2006, updated version Aug 18, 2009

Updated again on what would have been Mom’s 89^th birthday, Aug 18, 2011

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Green Lemonade and Tears

    

     I’ve always been proud of being Irish. I guess it came from my dad whose parents immigrated here as newlyweds.  My kids keep asking what nationality they have come from so I guess this is the ‘Last Hurrah’ before we turn into that diversity melange everybody seems to want.  I like a fruit salad myself where you can still tell an apple from an orange.  I’m kind of passionate about being Irish, though I’ve run into a few people who are not amused by my green nail polish or fake brogue.  This is the time of year I play the sad songs of Ireland, bake scones and invite my siblings for corned beef and cabbage. I stop short of “Kiss Me I’m Irish” buttons, leprechauns, pots of gold at the end of the rainbow, or any sort of Irish supremacy slogans.  We have our strengths and weaknesses.  The truth be told, there’s a lot not to be proud of about being Irish.

Some believe “the curse of the Irish”, a fondness for drink, is in the genes.  I think that nurture rather than nature plays a much greater role in what we become. To accept that one is genetically predetermined to be an alcoholic is to divest oneself of ones greatest resource - our faith in ourselves.  Even if we were dealt a poor hand by nature, we still can choose to make lemonade with our lemons.  The Irish race has had more than its share of lemons.  Here in America the Irish have been pumping out lemonade to beat the band with Irish names dominating the political landscape in Massachusetts for a long time.

I wonder what St. Patrick, who died on March 17^th in the 5^th century and who has been credited with the Christianization of Ireland, would say if he were to walk about today or catch the six o’clock news.  The scandal in the church would baffle him, I bet.  Jesus said having a millstone around one's neck and being cast into the sea would be preferable to the punishment of someone who caused one of his little ones to stumble. 

Heaven help us if a Victoria’s Secret commercial or a Britney Speare promo aired during the ‘murder and mayhem report’ that is our usual dinnertime fare. What’s this, he would look on in disbelief- same sex marriage? Faith and begora!  Abortion - a woman’s right to choose and cloning to kill in the name of scientific advancement all during the watch of a severely compromised church and politically promoted by names like Kennedy, Kerry, Leahy and Shays - Meehan.

Thomas Cahill wrote “How the Irish Saved Civilization”, telling how we played a heroic role in the preservation of civilization during the period between the fall of Rome and the rise of medieval Europe. I hope a sequel doesn’t have to be written about how the Irish, particularly the Massachusetts diaspora, dismantled civilization.  Irish pols keep playin’ the tunes, and tellin’ the tales that the electorate likes to hear. And, bring’n home the pork to go with the mess of pottage; like with Esau who sold his birthright, deals have been cut - a great inheritance traded for a lentil stew, or job security.

Like the unattractive figure on the Celtics Logo, we’re full of pluck, blarney and bluff.  You won’t find me dressed up like a leprechaun and pinching anyone who isn’t wearing green on St. Patrick’s Day because they just might not be that proud of being Irish, and I wouldn’t blame them. I’m not sure but I think St. Patrick would cry.

Christine Noonan Funnell, guest columnist, Metro West Daily News

March 13, 2002

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