SPRINGFIELD, MO: Home Of Awesome Beginnings

The POSITIVE ATTITUDE for the Weary Soul group gives you the opportunity to share the miracles in your life during this fall season with a creative writing challenge . Join in on the challenge with the  FALL SEASON OF MIRACLES CONTEST | Positive Attitude for the Weary Soul Group

              Life throws many curve balls! When I was five years old, my beautiful sister, Lisa was born. As I child I did not really understand what it meant when they told me that she was born paralyzed on one side, blind in one eye and having seizures. There was more.....she wasn't coming home. She was moved to a university hospital and doctors began doing a series of tests and operations. One day, my parents walked the halls and heard doctors in the different rooms talking about the operations being done to acquire research information on children that were not expected to live. My parents took their baby daughter out of the hospital. Some years later, she had to have her blind eye removed, knowing she could never see in that eye and she was experiencing some headaches in that eye.

                 Medical bills had mounted, and soon the house was approaching foreclosure, the electronic business my dad and mom owned was forced to close. I will never forget the day the sheriff came to the door, and soon we were moving to an apartment. As a child I knew everything was going to be okay, because my mom and dad said we were a strong family. My mom and dad slowly began working on sister's paralysis at home. There were no expectations, only hope, determination, and desire to make Lisa's life better. Each day they would work diligently to get some flexibility in my sister's body. Soon, we moved from Minnesota back to Branson, Mo where there was lots of family support from Grandma and Grandpa Robinson. Life continued status quo year after year.   

            I cannot express the joy I felt when I returned home from 1st grade and my mom and dad showed me that the foot braces were going off my sister's feet during the day and then she would wear them at night while she slept.    Each day I would run home to see how my sister was.   One day, she was standing, another day she took a step towards me to give me a hug.  Then there were more steps and then a run.   I cannot imagine how my parents felt when they looked out the kitchen window and watched her run around.           

When I was 8, and my brother Jon was 7, my parents were thinking about money, money was tight and they had an idea.   They would start teaching dance lessons.    My Dad and Mom had met on the Ozark Jubliee Show with Red Foley and danced together.  My Dad grew up in the dance studio and was quite the dancer.   Within a year, they had 100 students, and taught classes in the American Legion Hall.

Soon my little brother Gene, 5, and little Lisa, who was 3, were getting in on the classes.   You wouldn't believe how extraordinary it was to see her dance.

   Fast forward, and in 1977, my family was hired to open the fifth music show in Branson, Mo.   It was called Bob-O-Links and my family the Burdette Family Dancers opened the show and continued until 1987.    Traveling the United States, we performed in front of hundreds of thousands of people.   Within time my sister was even doing flips in the shows.