Stories With Heart And Soul 
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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I’m 57 and inching toward being a grownup. I’ve been in middle school in my mind for as long as I can remember. My father’s recent death and navigating my fifties are helping me mature. In this decade, much like adolescence, things change a lot. Your body and mind morph in ways that are hard
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I thought I was a merciful person and a good forgiver, but I’m not. There are people in my family that I’m not truly forgiving because I have a weak mercy muscle. I use it selectively when it should be a reflex. If you’ve got a good mercy muscle, you forgive people with empathy, compassion
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There’s an example of all that is good buzzing at the end of our block. It’s a home being re-built. My friend Judith lost half her house from the wind. It was the only victim of Hurricane Irma in our neighborhood. Her oak tree, with hundreds of rings, gave in to one of the last
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Yesterday, the last breath of Hurricane Irma slapped branches and bent tree trunks. Now the air is still. It feels like the moment when you run out of things to say to God. I’m looking for signs. The news cycle is already spinning away from the weather and back to Washington, reminding me of the
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The fifties are a decade of loss. Energy and memory ebb. Your body slips into second gear. Most devastating is the loss of family and friends to age and illness. Sometimes it’s just too much. This is one of those times. Last week I called my dad and could barely hear him. His voice was
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I paid close attention to our dog Clarissa’s licks these last weeks because I knew she was dying. I wanted to make sure I remembered what her kisses smelled like, as if the scent of her tongue were her signature. She was euthanized this morning. Before the vet came in, I put my face under
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I really wanted an A+ in motherhood, and I was completely devoted to the task. I read tons of parenting books and tried to do everything I learned. I’d give myself a B so far. Emma is my second child. My parenting style with her is a good example of what I thought excellent moms
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My perspective on parenting has changed over time – a lot. I learned to parent from the heart instead of the mind. I focus on my son Matt’s inherent goodness and strengths not his struggles with dyslexia or ADHD. When Matt was a toddler I obsessed about his intellectual achievement, measuring his progress against benchmarks in books for
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Love looks like so many things. The little symbols of love are the most endearing, like the weedy bloom my son Matt picked from a neighbor’s lawn and brought to her door when he was four. It also looks like the long floral dress Matt bought me at a neighborhood yard sale when he was
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