God Speed Jordan


Many of you know that one of my "wanna be comedians" aka my kids is Jordan. He has asked me from time to time if I would ever write a blog post about him. So, "Boy," this is for you.

Jordan was born on June 1, 1989. It was a hot summer day, school was out, and I was ready for this baby. (His precocious sister was five and we felt we could handle another child.) He was born in Bisbee, which is about 25 miles from home and if we had had a flat tire, Jordan would have been born on the highway. He came into the world 30 minutes after Bosco screeched to a stop in front of the Copper Queen Hospital. The doctor did not have time to change out of his gardening clothes, but he did wash his hands. There were no pain killers, no soft music, and no Lamaze transitions. I took a shower about an hour after I delivered him and took him home about 15 hours later. No frills, no fuss.

As a baby and as a child he was extremely funny. It was hard to scold him because we wanted to laugh at some of the things he did. But we tried. We had to call Poison Control a few times with him because he was always into something. He knocked flea powder off a shelf and it hit him square on the head, covering him from top to bottom. Lucky for us it was the "good kind" and we just had to give him a good bath and he never had fleas or ticks. When he was about three years old, he usually had dry dogfood in his pants pockets as a little snack and his sister and her friends could easily talk him into taking a bite out of a dog biscuit. He spray painted a wide streak of green on our first Labrador, Gussie. He made chute out of the dog door in the garage and chute-dogged our second Labrador, Poppy, until we had to put a stop to it. He could cartwheel and round-off better than his sister, the cheerleader, and did this at the most inopportune moment--like in front of the cheerleaders during a high school basketball game. He and two other friends "mooned" Meghan and her boyfriend as they sat on .the swing outside on our porch. He blew an electrical circuit or two when he tried to fix the cord on his electric sander and crossed the wires (he was in the fifth grade). There are more stories for other blog posts, but I am sure you get an idea of how life with this child was anything but boring or ho-hum!

School was not always easy. He was never phonetic when phonics was cool. He didn't love math and it was usually a struggle during homework time at the kitchen table. He didn't make bad grades, but when all his friends were getting the ribbons and awards for reading the most or the fastest or being a math-whiz, Jordan went unnoticed. They don't give school awards for teaching the substitute teacher how to use the vcr or finishing your homework at 5:30 in the morning because you feel asleep at the table at 10:00 the night before. His best friend, Tanner, stood by him when elementary and middle school kids humiliated him because he wasn't on the A-B honor roll and would tell him he was stupid or dumb. It was so hard helping him see that it all takes time, and that he was not the image of their small perspectives. One teacher in seventh grade almost did him in, but he was loved by some great teachers, who helped him see that they cared. They always reassured us that he would find his way. I worried that his way would be difficult and he would give up, but he is tougher than his obstacles.

Jordan followed his sister's path into 4-H. We should have really paid attention to the signs when he was signing up for the Horse Project and the Cattle Project when he first joined. We lived in town and had no plans to buy a horse or pasture a cow, but he went to the meetings and learned all he could. He did show rabbits for a year or two, which wasn't so productive. His first rabbit was eaten by a neighbor's dog, the second died of heat-stroke, his breeding pair wouldn't breed and when they did the doe gave birth to one large baby that didn't live, and one rabbit honestly seemed to die from choking on a carrot. Seriously. Jordan loves our county fair and it was there he made friends with a girl whose father would play a big role in Jordan's future. During weekends, summers, school breaks, the Zamudios would invite Jordan to hang-out on their farm and help-out with their day-to-day chores. He worked with their animals, helped clean pens, bag feed, bathe and groom their show animals, assist in birthing goats, and go to nearby livestock shows with them. So, after years of being nagged, begged, and pleaded with, we told him he could raise a pig IF he raised the money to buy his animal, his set-up equipment, and his feed. Six months later, he had his money, a place to raise his animal, and we were off to the pig sale. One pig led to another which led to another, and then a pig and a steer, and then another steer, and another pig. We started going with him to livestock shows and our spare time was spent around loading animals into trailers, moving steers to pens, working along side him when one needed an inoculation, and even not smelling the pig poop when we ate pizza outside the show-ring. It wasn't on a football field or the baseball field where we saw him grow gracefully from an awkward middle schooler into a confident young man. It was smoothly backing his pick-up and hitching up the stock trailer or driving his pig past the judge with a wink for me standing on the rails, cheering him on. When he graduated from high school, he wore an FFA stole around his neck and we knew the direction he was headed, but we weren't sure about his destination.


He landed at the University of Arizona after Cochise College. As I said earlier, school was not always easy, but along the way, he figured out how to make it work and as his teachers predicted, he has found his way. He majored in Agriculture Education and minored in Animal Sciences. He has been alone and found friends. He has played and he has worked. He has lost at love and found the right love. He still has the same best friend, Tanner, and he will stand next to him as Tanner's best man on May 25. His boss at the U of A told me that he has never had a harder worker or a better worker as Jordan. On May 11, at 8:00, Jordan will march into McHale Center with the University of Arizona graduating class of 2013. I cried like a baby when his sister made the big march, but I have cried all week about this one. I know this is just one of the many milestones he will pass and as his mother, I have been so lucky to have been there to see it happen. I know he will struggle as we all do, but it will be okay because he has done it in his own time and his own way. We are so proud of our boy, our man.

God bless you, Jordan. God speed.

"Godspeed (Sweet Dreams)"
by Radney Foster

Dragon tales and the "water is wide"
Pirate's sail and lost boys fly
Fish bite moonbeams every night
And I love you

Godspeed, little man
Sweet dreams, little man
Oh my love will fly to you each night on angels wings
Godspeed
Sweet dreams

The rocket racer's all tuckered out
Superman's in pajamas on the couch
Goodnight moon, will find the mouse
And I love you

Godspeed, little man
Sweet dreams, little man
Oh my love will fly to you each night on angels wings
Godspeed
Sweet dreams

God bless mommy and match box cars
God bless dad and thanks for the stars
God hears "Amen," wherever we are
And I love you

Godspeed, little man
Sweet dreams, little man
Oh my love will fly to you each night on angels wings
Godspeed
Godspeed
Godspeed
Sweet dreams