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In a fast-paced and sometimes cold hearted world, many women struggle simply to survive, to raise their children and along the way have lives that are at the least productive and at the best, fulfilled … Patsy Welch is one of these women and her tale is one that many will recognize — filled with sadness, struggle, alcohol, death, and divorce. But laced amid the daily chaos, shines a faith so strong and friendships so resilient it will forever change the way you see the world. While Patsy’s life is anything but a fairy tale, its ending rings with transformation and redemption so real it will stir even the cynical to great hope.
To quote Patsy herself: The end of her days has turned out to be better than the beginning.
Those who have read the manuscript have responded with unusual enthusiasm. When asked whether or not there were enough inspirational books out in the marketplace, Cave Henricks Communications’ owner and President Barbara Cave Henricks quickly replied, “No, not enough riveting, well-written ones with broad appeal like this one. This is ‘Tuesdays with Morrie’ meets Annie Lamott and I think it has that same kind of potential.”
Because Patsy also has a very keen sense of humor and a Lucille Ball-like life sometimes, there are “Patsy Moments” every few pages, stories about her frantic and often hilariously funny escapades.. These short 1-page glimpses into Patsy’s life keep the book and the subject matter from getting too ‘heavy’. Rich People Shop Here will inspire and encourage people, no matter what their circumstances.
A good friend of mine made a great observation the other day about Doctors. He is going through prostate cancer and is doing fine, but there was certainly a moment or two when he throught he might lose the battle. In our conversation he bragged on his doctor and then he suddenly shifted gears and asked “why in the world would anyone choose this kind of medicine and volunteer to get in the foxhole with you when there are so many easier medical gigs out there? Lots of ways to make money that don’t break your heart.”
After meeting Mom’s doctors, Dr. Fields and Dr. Suki, I believe I can answer that question. They are different. They care as much as a human can care, and they know in their hearts they can’t possibly win EVERY time. But if anybody is going to lead the army, in their minds, it might as well be them. Kind of like being called to something.
People who are called are different. I spoke one Sunday morning at a church and afterwards I signed books and talked with quite a few people. Lots of really tough stories of heartbreak and sadness. When I got in my pastors’s car afterwards to go to lunch, I asked him “how do you do this, man? How do you handle this kind of onslaught every day?” He said “you’d better be called. If you’re doing it for any other reason, it will kill you. When the phone rings at the pastor’s office it’s rarely good news.”
I suppose that’s also true with cancer doctors. So much is riding on every move and every decision. Whole families and communities are waiting and praying for good news and healing.
And these brave people are out front. I, for one, am thankful that they are. These 2 men have, with God’s help, spared my mother’s life and given her and all the people around her great hope. And, they’ve done it with a smile, a complement, grace, and dignity.
Gentlemen, thank you. You’ll have a part in every person who mom touches going forward. Stars in your crown….and you deserve every one of them.
Well, we are underway, and the first offensive has begun against mom’s breast cancer. Chemo is an onslaught, a shock to your system, and I suppose it’s even more magnified when you’re 80 (though, yes, her doctor says she LOOKS 60! She reminds us often.)
Mom seems to be holding up pretty well so far. She has her next round of chemo next Thursday, and there are 2 more after that, one every three weeks. This is all a lot to take in for a person who literally had not been sick a day in her life for the past 40 years. Several doctor visits a week, drawing blood samples, x-rays, chemo, etc. I’m sure that it’s almost more than she can bear sometimes.
But, through it all I have learned something about the importance of one’s perspective. Mom and I were talking the other day about the “what ifs?”. I asked what if this whole thing is all so that she can help others like her in her circle who have also been relatively healthy but are about to to go through a difficult time with their health? Her answer? “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me, especially if I know it will help somebody else when I’m all done with it.”
Bingo. Perspective. Her whole demeanor and attitude perked up when she realized that this fairly horrible experience was going to teach her something that she could share with others. Man, I’d love to ALWAYS see trouble like that, with those kinds of eyes.
Maybe someday….when I’m 80. And yes, I hope I look 60 then, too.
Just a few weeks ago I was in Nashville doing a gig at The Bluebird Cafe (Mecca for songwriters, and one of the items on my bucket list), and one afternoon I got a call from my mom. She’s good about checking in with me, but her tone seemed a little different as she began the conversation.
“Son, I have something wrong with me, but I am not going to discuss it with you right now. Just pray for me.”
And that was it.
So, I waited a few days and called her back and asked her if she was better. She said “no”, and we talked about her maybe going in to see her GP. She doesn’t really like doctors, but we made an appointment and Susie and I took her in for an examination.
Her doctor was immediately concerned and sent her out to get a mammogram that revealed that she had a lump. And, yes, it turned out to be malignant. The good news? It’s localized and treatable. We’ve begun the healing process by having a port put in last week for chemo, and they removed one of her lymph nodes to test it. She came through that operation with flying colors.
She is a woman of faith, and it comes through loud and clear. She is unafraid. Her actions say so. Her speech says so. “I’m 80, for heaven’s sake. Four score. God has an appointed time for me. This might be it. He will heal me of all my diseases except the last one.”
I have learned many lessons from my mom over the years, many of which I have put in the book. I recently re-learned the importance of a complement to a woman, and I learned it from her doctor no less. He had never met mom, and when he walked into the room, his first words to her were: “My, your chart says you’re 80, but you certainly don’t look 80. You look 20 years younger than that.”
She has talked about that every day since then! “My doctor says I look 60″ she’ll say out of the blue, as if to remind us all in case we forgot.
She’s a treasure. Good wishes, cards, and prayers are coming from all over the place. A sure sign of a life well-lived, an unselfish life devoted to others.
We’re just starting this war, and I for one hope to God she wins it. I’m convinced she still has important work to do here.
I’ll report back to you all from the battlefield. Thanks in advance for your prayers, kindness, and concern.
For whatever reason, it occured to me this weekend that everybody leaves behind artifacts of one kind or another when they go. Some of those are obvious-creative works like songs and books have a life of their own and live after us. If you’re a builder, your houses or skyscrapers will live on after you as well.
But there are other kinds of artifacts. Living, breathing ones, that have profound impact on the world, even though we’re not around to appeciate it directly.
Friends. They’re an artifact. Our families are perhaps our most important work that we leave a lasting imprint on in one way or the other.
Somehow, in the everyday hustle and bustle of life we forget that we’re building something that has lasting consequences. It’s very easy to do, isn’t it?
Memories are artifacts, too. Build great ones, and people will never forget you.
So, what does all this mean? Ask yourself everyday: What am I building? With my family, friends, in my creative life, in my circle. What about my reputation? It lives on, too. A good one or a bad one has the same half-life.
A good one is better. And apparently we can wreck a perfectly pristine reputation in very short order with just one or two kill shots, mistakes made in the heat of the moment. There’s a warning here: Walk circumspectly or else. Taking our eye off the road for even a second could be disastrous.
I don’t want to leave behind a bunch of broken relics and ashes. Rather, I aspire to build lasting memories, people who love me, a great family, great songs, good books, and most of all a good reputation. All with God’s help and grace.
Gotta go now. I have a lot of work to do….
This has been a tough go for about a year or so. Kay Kline, my mother in-law has been in declining health for much of that time, and my wife has been at her side with encouragement and everything you would expect from a saint.
She learned from the best. All the Klines are like that. When my brother in-law, Ken, was killed in a car accident in 1988, I remember that there was a lot of confusion. Susie and I drove frantically to Shreveport to be with her mom and dad and the rest of the family. Shortly after we arrived, a car with her Uncle Bobby and Aunt Marlene pulled up with Maryland license plates. They had heard the news about Ken, gotten in their car, and driven all night to be with the family.
Susie’s family is special. They don’t just talk the talk, they walk the walk. Over the last few weeks of her mom’s life, Susie lived in her hospital room with her, slept there, helped her to the bathroom, watched TV with her, discussed life with her, probably saved her life a time or two, and truly never left her side. When her mom went home, Susie came back to Austin for a week of R and R before heading back to Shreveport to stay with her mom indefinitely. She planned to leave on Saturday morning.
But, her mother died on Friday.
Some would wonder about the timing, but I think I understand. Her mother was looking out for her and didn’t want her to be there to see her die. So, on the day before Susie returned, she gave up. No horrible end. She just went away. Peacefully. She left this world doing what the Kline family does best: looking out for someone else.
The funeral was a beautiful event, a celebration held at Shreveport’s Barnwell Arts Center. Paintings were on display in the room where the ceremony was held. And not just famous artists were on display. Kay Kline’s paintings hung on the walls, too, a testament to her artistic ability and her great eye for beauty.
And there, on the front row was a family from all over the United States, many from the far reaches, some who had to really struggle to make the journey and be present.
I have been in the Kline Family now for 30 years and still I am amazed by the great love and the selfless actions of these people. I’m not sure that I’ve said it, so here goes….thanks. I’ve learned a lot about love from you all.
Miss Kay would be proud.
I just had to share this review, written by Roger Wright, a good friend of mine in Chicago, and a tremendous writer in his own right:
In “Rich People Shop Here” Dennis Welch doesn’t just share a story. He literally welcomes the world. Makes sure we’re all comfortable around the campfire of life. This is a book for everyone.
The book’s “radical welcome” unfolds on every page as Welch invites the world inside the home where he grew up on Deerfield Street in Houston. The Welch home on Deerfield Street was the polar opposite of the white picket fence television images of “Leave it To Beaver” or “Father Knows Best” that gave rise to the universal cultural images of what it meant to grow up in a “normal” family.
Sharing his story in the larger light of his mother Patsy and his father Ron with a world class honesty and clarity; enables the reader to really get to know these folks in all their moments of brutal life challenges, soaring joys, and laugh out loud memories. NOTHING is idealized in this book. There is a total absence of clichés. Not a shred of doubt that every single person in this book is as real as can be. And is also an individual unlike anybody else.
So what happens in this sharing of a story is that the reader, any reader, is also invited to begin reflecting on all the ways they too are individuals, have had their taste of real life joys and sorrows, and even moments of unexplainable, unseen mystery. The reader is left feeling glad to know Patsy and all the other real people in the book. The reader feels welcome.
Welch’s gentle touch as a storyteller reflects a talent of one born to do the work of telling stories that welcome. Like a warm Houston rain with flashes of Larry McMurtry, but with a voice that is totally his own; Welch then goes on to do something very rare: he creates a picture of a living, breathing church that would also welcome anyone. In sharp contrast to the shrill, divisive, and downright destructive voices of religion in America today; Welch portrays a church that, like the Welch household, would extend the hand of welcome to anyone. A church that would do the incredibly simple sounding work of “treating a neighbor as you would yourself.”
A philosopher once commented that “The trouble with Christianity is that nobody has ever tried it.”
That is unfortunately all too often true.
But in “Rich People Shop Here” Dennis Welch proves the philosopher wrong.
This is a story told with grace. A deceptively simple story to learn from, talk about and remember.
It’s a story that welcomes everyone.
My father used to always say, “Be kind, son. Everybody’s going through something.”
And you know what? It’s true.
When I stand up in a room full of people these days and talk about my unusual family and all of its issues, I know for certain that we aren’t the only ones with a little wackiness and trouble. Somebody came up to me a few weeks ago after one of my talks and said “Geez, I thought MY family was the most dysfunctional family in the world, but yours takes the cake.” Hmmm…Doesn’t ‘disfunctional’ imply that something DOESN’T work? Our family had all the same stuff going on as every family has, but somehow the choices my folks and many of the people in our orbit made were different and they led to very different results. What they did actually worked just fine.
I guess it wasn’t disfunctional though it certainly had all the elements to be.
It was functional.
So, let’s see what all this means. Everybody has issues. Every family certainly does. And, they’re going to deal with them the best way they know how.
Voila! That makes me understand maybe for the first time the real value of Rich People Shop Here. It’s one thing to tell me in theory what I should do when my hair is on fire, or when I’ve been offended and my gut is telling me to react. It’s quite another to hear about real people who faced these same hair-on-fire issues and decided to take a different road, the high road. It’s good to be able to follow them through the story and see where the high road leads, after all is said and done.
Functional. That means it works, right?
It stops being a theory and it becomes a road map. Imperfect people who didn’t do it all right everytime, but you can read about how much of the time they made good choices. Readers so far are telling me that they can relate, they can follow, they can see the future and the options a bit more clearly, and they can connect.
And, I think there’s something very comforting about that.
This little epiphany makes me want to get in my car and just start driving all around and stopping wherever anybody will lend an ear. I’m thinking this story and the take-aways could save people a lot of wrong turns and heartache and wasted time…
My tendency is to just accomplish things and then check them off my list. But I decided to really relish my week in Georgia and enjoy every single minute of it. We spoke at a book club there and at the Sunday morning service at my old church. What a week!
The book club meeting on Tuesday night began with a room full of ladies who all showed up carrying a copy of my book, Rich People Shop Here. That alone made it kind of surreal. But then, they started asking questions and it was obvious they had all read the book and really enjoyed it. Great questions, great people, and lots of fun.
Then, we stayed with our good friends the Portman’s for a couple of nights and thoroughly enjoyed that, too. What gracious people.
We stayed Saturday night at our Pastor John Byerly’s house. He and his wife Lacy welcomed us with open arms. We had dinner and another wonderful visit.
Sunday morning I spoke at Presbyterian Church of the Redeemer. The place was jam-packed with people and I spoke about “Patsy, Paul, and Mary”. The response was kind of overwhelming, to be honest. We sold lots of books after the service, I had a chance to talk with many people who are going through various trials and tribulations and overall it was a blessed day all around.
I’m thankful for this time. I really am going to try very hard to relish all the events around this book and not just do them and check them off my list. It is my sincere hope that we get to deliver “Patsy. Paul, and Mary” to more people over the next few months. It is apparently a very inspiring message, one that encourages forgiveness and offers a lot of hope
I’m always humbled when things work out. This was a special week indeed. Thanks, Georgia friends for your friendship and encouragement. I hope to see you again soon…..
So, let me just begin by saying that there are all kinds of PR. I’ll explain later.
It all began with a breakfast meeting a month or so ago with my pastor, Will Davis Jr. He’s a great guy and I’m delighted that he’s my pastor and my friend. I met him at Waterloo here in Austin one morning at around 7:30. We had a delightful visit, I signed a copy of my new book Rich People Shop Here to he and his sweet wife Susie, and all was well.
Then, a couple of weeks ago I found out that someone was selling a copy of Rich People on Amazon for a premium because it was a “collector’s item, signed by the author”. I went right over to the item to see who in the world would be selling their copy of the book already, especially ONE I HAD SIGNED SPECIFICALLY TO THEM…
And there, plain as day was the inscription: “To Will and Susie.”.
What!!!! I jumped to EVERY conclusion and I have to say my first reaction did not give him the benefit of the doubt. SELL MY BOOK THAT I SIGNED TO YOU???? HOW DARE YOU???? It’s a work of art, for God’s sake!!!!
I waited a couple of days and sent Will a note to let him know that I had found it on line and I was very clinical in what I sent. Unemotional, even.
His reply was priceless: “Thank God you found it! We’ve been looking all over for it! We thought we’d lost it!” It turns out that Will and Susie had recently moved his parents out of their house and his house was FILLED with STUFF. Susie suggested that he take some of their stuff to Goodwill, so Will just started taking things down there to clear some space.
Unfortunately, my book was in the Goodwill stuff. When he found out it was for sale as a collector’s item he was appalled and embarrassed.
So, what did he do? He logged on to Amazon and bought his OWN BOOK back at a premium, a book that was signed and given to him!
This past Saturday and Sunday he preached about having too much stuff. That enough is what we need and that most of us have more than enough. We have so much that we lose our friend’s book and have to buy it back. He held the book up in every service and….
Well, I’ve already said it. There are all kinds of PR.
My lesson? Give people the benefit of the doubt. Don’t jump to conclusions.
All the things I write about in my book….
The past 7 days have been among the most interesting and fulfilling consecutive days I have ever experienced.
I spoke twice to a room full of job seekers at Hill Country Bible Church. If that’s all I had done this week, it would have been a fulfilling one.
But there’s more. Over the last week I have made new friends on Twitter and found old friends on Facebook and re-connected over dinner this past weekend.
And, I’m disconnecting from some things. I’ve decided to focus all my attention in 2010 on two goals besides my family: Cave Henricks Communications and this book PR business that I absolutely love, and “Rich People Shop Here”, my book.
Oh, and I did a delightful telephone interview on Saturday with Brigitte Mongeon and her daughter about Creativity and “Rich People.”
Much of the connecting of many of these seemingly disparate events was due to the new world of social media. For many years I have avoided social media, mainly because I didn’t understand it. I do now. When someone with 5,000+ followers decided they like your book and they tweet about it, the results are powerful. Amazon has re-ordered a fair number of books, and the activity has increased exponentially since I started using Facebook and Twitter.
I’m amazed. And, I’m looking forward to the next 7 days. Susie and I are headed to Georgia to speak at a church and book club. And, yes, I’ll probably tweet about it.
I should probably take a nap now and save my energy….
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