A Collection of Poems and Words of Encouragement and Inspiration

Christmas 2006, before there was A Collection of Poems and Words of Encouragement and Inspiration, I gave my mother a gift from my heart: "A Daughter's Poem."

Eight years later, my father passed away. The morning of his funeral, I woke up at 3:30, grabbed pen and paper, and wrote the poem "A Tribute to My Dad."

My parents lived on top of a mountain in the Wichita Mountain Range and Wildlife Refuge in Oklahoma, five hundred miles from my front door.

Back in the day, my family and I, mom, and da...