I’m Karen Blakeney, Nathan’s mom.
There’s more to me than that, but when you go through a really rough time with a child, being “mom” seems to be the sum total of your life, the only title that matters. I’m also mom to four other great kids: Adam, Natalie, Steven, and Michelle. Adam is studying biomedical engineering at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (maybe he’ll discover future innovations in treating heart defects!). Natalie is a student at the Cardiac and Vascular Institute of Ultrasound in Mobile. Steven, a mixed doubles state tennis champ, completed his first semester at Ole Miss with a 4.0 GPA (possibly our future dentist). Michelle is an honor student and soccer player at Gulfport High.
Before I became “Mom,” I graduated from Millsaps College in Jackson with a degree in art. One summer, mid-education, I studied the poetry of Lord Byron and PreRaphaelite art at St. John’s College at Oxford University, which was just a scholarly excuse to get out of Mississippi to see Big Ben. After graduation, I married my high school sweetheart, Bryan Blakeney (who is still crazy about me, by the way), and spent the early years of our marriage establishing his dental practice in Orange Grove.
The Blakeney Family
Faith is an important part of our family life. We are Southern Baptist–a pew in the balcony of Grace Memorial Baptist Church practically form fits our derrieres.
When our late-in-life surprise baby, Nathan, was born, we discovered he had Scimitar Syndrome, a rare heart condition that required surgery to correct Partial Anomalous Pulmonary Venus Return. That event, along with an assortment of coinciding trials, rocked our world, and at times, had me shaking my head (and in my boots), repeating, “I could write a book…”
Well, I did write a book. One day, I hope to publish Nathan: A Heart, A Storm, A Prayer.
Other writings:
- An excerpt from Nathan won first place in the Gulf Coast Writers Association’s Twenty-first Annual “Let’s Write” Literary Contest. See their website to read “The Privacy Curtain.”
- My nonfiction essay, “Evolution of the Southern Summer,” appeared in the Premier Issue of Accent South Mississippi.
- I was recently named one of Mississippi Gulf Coast Writers Association’s Featured Writers. See their website to read “A Southern Baptist Courtship.”
- The Autumn 2009 issue of The Magnolia Quarterly includes “Justa Puffa Wind,” my childhood recollection of Hurricane Camille.
- A nonfiction essay about Nathan is slated to appear in a popular national magazine in a summer 2010 issue.
