Peering Through Life's Window

MEET JENNIFER AND ASHE SLATTERY Be sure to click on K Dawn's name below to see Ashe's interview on K Dawn Byrd's blog Parenting on Your Knees This year our daughter starts high school. This is the age when kids either flop or flourish. They either self-destruct or blossom. Quite honestly, a great deal of the parenting’s already been done. More and more, I spend less time telling my daughter how to view the world. Most often, I listen as she tries to figure out how her views fit in with the world. Basically, her core values are set, although luckily, she’s turned into a very strong and committed Christian. I say luckily, yet luck had nothing to do with it. When she was young, I dreaded the teen years. We’ve all seen teens raised by wonderful parent spiral into self-destruction. We’ve watched relationships shatter and once sweet and cooperative children turn into angry, rebellious teens. But one thing I learned very early on—whatever battle we faced, whatever dis...

 Jo will be giving away a signed copy of her prayer book, Amen and Good Night, God. Equipment for Valley Travel My bedside vigil stretched into days as I watched meningitis suck precious life from the still form of my college-age child. Sunday afternoon I sat alone with my daughter, watching the disease apparently winning its battle. Gone were the twinkle in her eyes and the ready smile on her lips. The nurse had just left, the same one who had been coming in every 15 minutes to take vital signs. Pained and discouraged, I watched when she recorded on her chart a blood pressure reading only half what it should be. Alone again in the hospital room, each of us experienced our own unique agony. Lying curled in a fetal position, my daughter moved only her eyes. With them almost swollen shut, she looked up at me through her consumed torture. "Mother, this may be my time to die," she whispered. No panic or fear registered in her words or in her fevered eyes. The same th...