Happy mother's and mothering day

For this year I'm changing Sunday to Mother's and Mothering day. While I must give complete tribute to my Mom (Mommy, hear me!, you're number 1 !!) I also want to honor those others who "mothered" me along the way. Mothering is defined as the nurturing and raising of a child. For sure, "a whole is the sum of all its parts". Meaning, we are what we are because of all who mothered us along the way. For me, these five come to mind:

1. a grandma who helped raise me, influence me, and teach me a lot about giving due respect to those who deserve it. Her lessons live with me daily.

2. an aunt who was ALWAYS kind. Whether it was a piece of gum everytime I walked up to her house, letting me spend the night and sleep on a pallet on the floor, or not totally killing me when I broke one of her 25th Wedding anniversary gifts, she always treated this "Amy Gail" right.

3. a mother-in-law who taught me that we could both love her son to the end of the earth. Having someone you know you can totally count on is a gift from God. Her selflessness is a lesson she could teach a course on.

4. an aunt-in-law who first endeared me when she gave me a gift on my first visit to the Walker Christmas. She would go on to show such commitment to helping us with our house. (A debt I could hardly repay). She even let my baby be her "honorary" grandbaby. And, to me,a true friend that I know I can turn to for sound advice.

5. a dear friend I used to work with who always "chose" to be happy. She nurtured me spiritually in a pivotal time in my life. She led by example, through her vast knowledge of the scripture and through her genuine love for the Lord and his people. She doesn't even know how much she influenced me.

And to my Mommy...who else has a Mom who dipped snuff and rolled houses with toilet paper with her girls? Who else has a Mom who owned a clown suit and used it regularly? Who else has a Mom who, in the seventh inning of a very close game, offered to have a cook-out for Chuck's whole baseball team if they would beat Methodist? (They won and we did).

May I learn from my Mommy and all those who mothered me.

You, too, can be sued

Most of you don't know that I was recently officially sued for a sum "in excess of ten thousand dollars". Sit back...this story will seem ridiculously unreal. Back in January I returned to work at Wal-mart after having been off for a couple of days. Laying to the side of the pharmacy was a certified big manila envelope that had been delivered to (and signed for)at the service desk. It was addressed to Amy Baker Bynum. I cannot tell you how much I dreaded opening this letter. You see, only the Board of Pharmacy knows me as Amy Baker Bynum at 1527 Garner Station Blvd. I knew this could not be good.

"We hereby serve upon you the enclosed summons, complaint..." My heart raced as I tried to quickly read what this was all about. (I must take a moment to say that it is very stressful to work in a job where you know that any mistake can harm someone and/or put your a** on the line in every way. I simply can't afford to "have a bad day". If I don't sleep well one night, if I feel sick one day, if I am worried about something away from work, if I'm simply too busy...I can make a really serious mistake. And even if no one is hurt as a result, I could still lose my license, job, and even more financially. I know this everyday I walk into that pharmacy.)So, back to the law suit...

This is the gist of it all: Seems some guy got the wrong medicine in Gastonia !! NC in December of 2006 !!. From what I'm told, they had a man pharmacist that worked at that store some, at the time, with the FIRST name of Bynum (how crazy is that?). Anyway, in the plaintiffs and his lawyers haste to sue..they somehow did ALOT of research (joking) and named ME as the plaintiff in this case.

Okay, so I'm really upset by the time I make it through all this legal mumbo-jumbo of a "civil summons" I've received in the mail. Rationally, I know this is an obvious mistake, easy to fix right? WRONG. I am soon in a whirl of phone calls to Wal-mart's home office, mine and their district managers, talking with the service desk to see who signed for the letter, talking to my Wal-mart appointed lawyer. This would also lead to numerous copies of letter/documents, mailings to my lawyer certified mail, signing stuff in front of notaries and etc. Not to mention the true intense stress this has caused me. I am convinced that all this legalese talk is purposefully that way so that even an educated person won't really realize if they are about to go to prison. I was at the mercy of my Wal-mart lawyer to "trust" that everything was proceeding as it should to get me off the case.

Well, FOUR MONTHS LATER I have received the letter saying I am "dismissed with prejudice". I understand "dismissed" but why can't it just stop there? What is the extra legal wording here? My lawyer told me early on that I would be dismissed but that, unfortunately, that is all the court will show. There won't and never will be any legal, formal way to say I am dismissed because I should have never been named in this case anyway! So now I will always show a court case once filed against me in the Gaston County court system. It will show I was dismissed but no mention of how completely innocent I was.

While I love America, our system is obviously flawed. We have a loss of innocence here. This case shows that you can simply be minding your own business, working everyday as a productive citizen and still get caught up in something so ridiculous. I have invested my time and some money to get my name cleared. If Wal-mart hadn't been a part of the suit, I would have been paying a lawyer myself. Y'all know me and can probably imagine the stress this has caused me. It is upsetting when it takes 4 months and lots of effort to settle a case that originated in a store I have never even placed my foot inside. Just writing about it now makes me irate!!!

Sorry so long in writing. Just wanted to share this and hope nothing like this ever happens to anyone else...but I know it will.