Stories With Heart And Soul 
Family dinner is good for the soul. When my children Matt and Emma were young, I read articles about the value of sitting together for meals. Family dinner saves lives, preventing drug abuse and reducing the likelihood of all kinds of social pathology. It even boosted IQs so I devoted myself to the ritual, using
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“Today is the anniversary of my mom Rita’s death. I was 22 when she died so this year has special significance as my daughter Emma is 22. We are going to do 22 kind things together in honor of my mom. The first is asking people to join us in honoring this day with an act of
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I have the privilege of being a substitute teacher at the Atlanta Girls’ School school where my daughter Emma attended middle school and high school. The word privilege sounds like hyperbole when you’re talking about being a substitute teacher, but it’s not. When Emma was a student at the AGS, I was a vocal fan
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My uncle is 87 and a very difficult man. Sometimes I struggle to find goodness in him. He has an iron grip on his routine, a powerful sense of entitlement, and no filter. He’s lived alone since my father died last year so I fly up every few months to check on him. Yesterday I headed
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Aunt Kay is my second mom. She taught me so many things by example, including valuable life lessons. She also offered love and comfort when we baked thumbprint cookies together. The ritual had a spiritual quality. We worked side-by-side in silence under the kitchen window where the afternoon light spotlighted our effort and made the
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I woke up this morning with a foreign feeling of gratitude. The object was my backyard. It’s one of the first things I see. It’s big and green and landscaped with curves like a winding stream. I love it. But I’ve seen it ten thousand times. Why so grateful now? I’ve been trying to be
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Remember Oprah Winfrey’s amazing acceptance speech at the Golden Globes Award Show this year? It was a call-to-action for girls and women to continue the fight for equal justice. It’s thrilling to see that sexual harassment, something I took for granted when I was young, is in the light and that things are changing. I
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“I share being bipolar because it is an act of love.” This just came out of my mouth last night while I was talking to a friend of my husband. She was telling me about her daughter’s struggles without sharing intimate details, so I told her I was bipolar. This usually makes people more comfortable
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If there is one place to be courageous, it’s with your family. Courage counts most when love is at stake. The women of Thistle Farms are the best example of love, courage and healing I can think of. They are a family of lions who’ve overcome life on the streets to build a very successful
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Bren McClain, the author of One Good Mama Bone, came to my book club last night. She’s the new rock star of Southern prose as far as I’m concerned. Just like a teenage groupie, I went wild with the news that she was coming to our book club. I texted my children, friends, and relatives with double exclamation
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