“I am not the person I want to be. I want to be strong and resilient, able to rise above every circumstance to find a good way out, to power through difficulties, to soar above. It is cooler than I expected. The gray clouds again sit on the crests of the mountains, and no matter how I try, I can’t change my reality.

Which is what? No electricity. No water. Of course, no internet, no text, no phone service. Our weather information remains frozen on our screens since the last time we checked it Thursday evening before going to bed. We are marooned at a ski resort in the off-season with no snow. Two nights ago, the winds blew from the east with the approaching sound of a freight train; the rain blew sideways. During the black of the night, you didn’t hear the trees fall for the thundering sound of the wind in their leaves. It was almost as if they just quietly laid down.

Read More

“Would you like to sign up for a tour?” Mikah asked in all seriousness with a hopeful smile on her face. She had politely interrupted the always ongoing conversation between her mother and me. She held a notepad and pen in hand. All that was needed to take a guided tour through my home was my name, my phone number, and the time I was requesting. Of course, that specific time wasn’t avahilable because she had a previous appointment, but she could take me at 1:35 instead (five minutes later) if that worked for me.

With a loop of long-ago discarded keys in hand, she led me (and her mother, my niece) from room to room, stepping over her 3-year-old brother playing with the floor-size alphabet puzzle, around Jeff and the dog in a ferocious game of tug of war. After completing the circle of bedroom and bathroom and office as she pointed out highlights of the 'community', we ended up in the kitchen where she presented with an open arm "…the cookie making counter; suitable for making Christmas cookies and Hanukah cookies and well, really any holiday cookies…”

Read More

"This is the longest goodbye…" Nancy said, and I think I agree. It is a perfect fall day here on Shady Lane. The sun is low, light filtering through my cousin Jack's oak leaves. The air stirs with a soft breeze, and the American flag in its stars and stripes glory sways from its perch on the front porch. We haven't covered the pool this year, so the water still ripples that perfect shade of 1950s blue. And I am still here camping out in my mother's house.

It is under contract. We have agreed on a short list of repairs. The movers come this week to pack up Nancy's furniture, with its own pedigree of family history; the Tanner pie safe and the turn-of-the-century white kitchen cabinet with red enamel trim (both of them refinished painstakingly by Daddy), Mama Cunningham's iron bed, the vintage formica kitchen table picked up from the side of the road, and oh shoot, we still haven't gone through those last two photo albums we just discovered – both from the 1940s, Daddy in France, Momma in nurses training at Greenville General Hospital and then stationed in Mississippi. At that point in time, they were on very different trajectories. It would be 10 years before their paths crossed again.

Read More

There she was. Sashaying down the aisle to the right of where I sat in my pew at church; petite and blond, black skirt short, sweater formfitting. Knee-high black boots, a beret perched at a jaunty angle on her head. A kindred spirit. We had not met, but I knew that I knew her well. I was in my early 40s, she must have been in her early 60s, yet she moved with the energy of a woman in her 30s. Poised, confident, strong. My introduction to Joan Christopher Quillen from afar. I knew, the moment I saw her we would become dear friends.

I don’t remember when we actually met. I just know I was drawn to her like a bear to honey, and she to me. Our spirits aligned. Our values were perfectly in sync. I was her biggest fan, and she mine.

Read More

It is a spring morning. The earth has washed itself clean after two days of steady rain. The grass is greener. The limbs of the white oaks stretch overhead black against the mist of the morning heavens. A dog beside me on the window seat grows impatient for me to fix her breakfast, but my coffee is hot, and I want to enjoy the quiet entrance of the day just a little bit longer.

These days are numbered. The house that has always been home for me will soon have a sign in the front yard. Papers from our meeting with the realtor are still spread across the table, waiting to be read closely and signed. My to-do list this week includes ‘call the lawyer’ along with ‘finish painting the baseboards’ and ‘clear out the garage’. This is a season of change. A season that started almost a year ago and is accelerating.

Read More

Sometimes thoughts line up together like hand in glove; each finger, each thought fitting perfectly, sliding easily into its rightful place. I am reading these mornings in Deuteronomy. The forty years are over, the grumbling almost quietened, the land of the promise visible from the highest hill just on the other side of the river Jordan. Joshua has been chosen. Moses has not. And so, Moses has his last words to the children of the people he started this journey with; the ones who embraced fear and cowardness at the first mention of giants in the land of Canaan. That land flowing with milk and honey.

Because of their refusal to trust God, they have been wandering in the wilderness for forty years; one year for each of the forty days the spies had explored the land God had promised to give them. Only their children would inherit that land. But with their inheritance came a book of instructions. Thousands of years later, on the other side of the world, we can't begin to understand how much these laws and decrees have influenced our government, our country, our lives, and our thoughts about what is right and what is wrong.

Read More

It is one of those phone calls you never want to receive. You can’t take in the words. You think for just a moment if you hadn’t answered the phone, it would all go away, disappear, never have happened.

Terrible accident. The names listed out. Gone. No going back. The white caskets will line up in the church. You will all wait forever and ever to gather graveside because it takes longer than expected to bury so many at one time. And afterward an emptiness, a fear, a "how could this happen?" that never is answered. My fear of large trucks on interstates; watching the grassy area of the median to make sure they don't cross over without warning into my lane. The irrational thoughts while packing the car for a trip - wondering if we never return, is the house cleaned up enough if my family has to turn the key in the lock and come in to disassemble my life?

Read More