Happy 18th Birthday, Juliette

Happy Birthday to my wonderful daughter Juliette who turned 18 recently. I love you, Juliette, forever and ever and ever. I’ve said it 100 times and it’s always truer than the time before. The happiest day of my life was the day you were born. Thank you for being with me these last 18...

Read More

Juliette’s Prom, Hope and a Future

Juliette is my beautiful teenage daughter. Sweet and classy and with a big heart for all God’s creatures great and small. She had her junior prom last week. I’m so proud of the young woman she is becoming. She’s gearing up for an exciting trip to Europe this summer. When she...

Read More

Family Traditions and Saving Broken Things

I baked these pumpkin muffins this morning. They’re sitting on this old marble washstand I bought in 1992. I got it at the old Spivey’s Antique Store that used to be on May Avenue off Northwest 23rd Street here in OKC. I was married to Juliette’s dad then. In 1998, a year after...

Read More

If You Could Have Only One Memory What Would It Be?

In order to write your memoir, you must first know how to remember. If you could have just one memory, what would it be? Here is mine. I am 29-years-old and six days from 30. I’m on my side in a hospital bed. I white-knuckle the rails and sweat like a pig. The nurse points to the monitor and...

Read More

What are tears of grace? I wondered.

There were four of us huddled together in the same bed. Two of us were crying and two of us were not. Someone said, “Don’t Cry.” But, someone else said, “Don’t Stop.”  And, then: “Let them cry their tears of grace.” I wondered what it meant and then...

Read More

Field Journal: Week 47

I want to live an honest life. Writing helps me neutralize my shame and face my failures so they don’t control me. I need to write to be healed, one word, one post at a time. Kurt Vonnegut said, “Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world your...

Read More

Pin It on Pinterest