Wife Swap

The premier episode of Wife Swap in September of 2004 aired a few weeks after Megan’s surgery to remove her left adrenal gland.  My girl’s body still required enormous bed rest, and the new show was a respite during those first house bound days.  The show featured Jodi Spolansky, a New York City socialite, and Lynn Bradley, a hard-working, wood-chopping mom from rural New Jersey. Wife Swap’s mantra is:

for two weeks, two wives from two different families with very different values
exchange husbands, children and lives (but not bedrooms)
to discover what it’s like to live a different woman’s life.

Delicious!  If I ever taught a college level course on reality television, the Spolansky/Bradley show would be required viewing for any respectable trash t.v. portfolio and questions about this study in American diversity would definitely be on the pop quiz. Megan and I followed the Spolansky/Bradley fall-out all the way to their guest appearance on Oprah, where husband and socialite Steve Spolansky apologized to hard-working Lynn Bradley for being a jack ass (it does take a big man to go on the Big O and own up for his big mistakes).  Beyond that drama, I didn’t watch the show as Megan moved into a brief remission from cancer and the busyness of my life resumed.

Last week it seemed angel Gabriel and a host of seraphim were harkening me back to the television in the 4:00 p.m. hour.  The 100 degree Nebraska heat, compounded with my own menopausal heating system, left me feeling not so hot. Grabbing a glass of water to rehydrate, I slipped back to my bedroom to lie down. In that split second, as I steadied the remote to change to Our Oprah Girl, I saw Jay Johnson, trainer for The Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders, on-screen for a 2005 rerun episode of Wife Swap.

Sweet Jesus. Thank you for the future blogging material!

I hit the TiVo record button, and was on my way to expanding my knowledge of all things Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders.

It doesn’t take enormous creativity to imagine the scenario set up by Wife Swap producers.  Jay Johnson swaps his beautiful Boot Camp companion (and wife), Lin Johnson, for Rebecca Blackburn, a soap opera junkie from Tennessee that uses their fitness room like a big storage closet (so that means couch potato Tony Blackburn gets gorgeous and fit Lin Johnson for two weeks, too).  The look of terror on Tony’s face when Lin shows up at his door was right out of the movie, Adams Family Values.  Be afraid, be very afraid.

Even sweeter was Rebecca Blackburn’s reaction to new two-week hubby Jay Johnson:

I know he’s gonna make me work out something fierce.  I just know it!

I took a few minutes out of my lying around time to calculate what it would cost for a human being to have access to Jay or Lin Johnson for two solid weeks.  On their website, you can buy a 30 minute personal consultation for $150.00. Assuming seven hours of sleep at night (which is quite generous for the 4:00 a.m. risers), that leaves 17 hours a day to glean all things fitness from The Masters ($5,100 a day). Take that times 14 days, and you have a whopping $71,400 in free services.  Too bad it appeared Rebecca and Tony wanted the BK Whopper, instead.

As reality t.v. marched on, Sound Off 1-2-3-4, I was stopped in my boots by the realization that I do have Jay Johnson in my home, in the form of the DCC Power Squad Shirt.  The shirt was sent to me from Jay Johnson through Kelli Finglass, Director of the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders, in memory of my girl who desperately wanted to one day be well enough to earn the prized t-shirt.   To recap for newbies to the blog, after my January 3, 2010 blog, I was emailed by Kelli Finglass and Judy Trammell of The Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders.  They not only provided a base of encouragement to me, the Nebraska writer who was buried under 14″ of snow, but they sent a few care packages to the wounded troops….me, a struggling mom, recovering from the death of my 27-year-old daughter.

Megan had this amazing awareness of the value of her physical body.  In the notes Megan left me for the book in progress, Put Up Your Umbrella, she shares her philosophy on fitness:

What if you were only given one car at age 16 and had to keep that car for the rest of you life?  How would you take care of it?  Would you throw Cheetos’ in the back seat and completely trash it?  That’s how I feel about my body.  I’m only issued one body, and I have to take care of it for the rest of my life.

Jay Johnson began Wife Swap with:

Treat your body like a Ferrari.  If you don’t have a Ferrari, your body is your Ferrari.

It echoed Megan’s dictum.  No wonder she loved Jay Johnson.

As they grew up, I impressed on both my children that all that they do should be done with excellence.  Jay and Lin Johnson are the standard of excellence in fitness.  My girl died telling me to take care of myself.  More than that, she died caring for herself.  Just fourteen days before her death she said to me, “Mom, if I feel better tomorrow can you get out the Billy Blanks’ Tae Bo tapes so I can work out?”

The very idea of this was preposterous.  At the time, Megan required a cane just to hobble to the bathroom.  She had tumors up and down her spine; abnormalities so monstrous they played with the components of her neural system, stripping away the parts that cooperated with pain medication, convincing the brain that she was in constant agony.  In spite of living in a level of agony that I believe few can imagine, my girl still imagined being fit enough to wear Jay’s Power Squad T-shirt, and wanted to take care of the one body God had given her.

Jay Johnson preached the ideal that we should work through the pain and Megan was that living testament in her mission to keep fit even throughout her illness, even in her final moments when she hoped to turn on Billy Blanks’.

Recovering from the death of a daughter requires baby steps all the way.  This week’s step is to reach for Jay and Lin’s standard of excellence, and to try in my own feeble way to reach my girl’s revelation of health.

Though my daughter is dead, yet she speaks.

Key Notes:

• Hebrews 11:4, in the Amplified Bible, reads “And though he (Abraham) died, yet he is still speaking.”  Though Megan has been gone from me for over two years, her life still speaks.
• It is impossible, still, to articulate the meaning of the Power Squad Shirt, sent through Kelli Finglass in Megan’s memory.  I sobbed almost uncontrollably through the last four paragraphs of this blog.
• The Billy Blanks Tae Bo Tapes are outstanding.  Though my girl was the #1 Fan of The Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders – Making the Team, Jay’s Boot Camp Home Edition was not available on video in 2008.  It is now available on his website www.jaysbootcamp.com.

On a Lighter Note:

• Sunni Cranfill of the DCC will be checking in with me from time to time to make sure I’m getting my bum off the couch.  By the grace of God, she adopted me when I began blogging about America’s Sweethearts.
• I’m loving my DCC workout videos, especially the bonus part where I can use my DCC Jr. pom poms.  (Don’t worry, Megan.  Your uncoordinated mom closes the drapes.)
• My cousin Libby took me to Whole Foods today to shop for healthier groceries.  Libby became a Vegan two years ago.  Vegan is a more annoying version of a vegetarian.*

*I think I heard that on the Saturday Night Live News Update.

Tags: Jay Johnson, Judy Trammell, Kelli Finglass, Lin Johnson, Sunni Cranfill, The Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders, Wife Swap