Be sweet, Lewis, be sweet. Those were the words Mama Grizzard spoke to Lewis each morning as she sent him out the door into the big wide world of elementary school. That's southern-speak for be kind, be patient, be forgiving, be compassionate, be slow to[..]
It’s my birthday. The very first in my life without the woman who birthed me. I’d post one of those photos here. You know the kind with the mother kneeling beside her daughter or son, as they blow out their candles, but I don’t[..]
Daddy’s last instruction to me was to stop crying because it upset Mama. I tried as best I could to do as Daddy had asked. But what he didn’t know then is that Vietnam would upset a lot of people. I learned at an early[..]
In one of the letters he sent Mama from Nam, Daddy referred to their first date: “I remember when I took some good looking girl to the carnival in Kingsport. Do you remember?” The letter arrived shortly after Daddy died. In that same letter, he[..]
I took an ailing veteran to the VA Center in Boise, Idaho this week. He's a young fellow, in his mid-forties. A big lug of a guy, 6' 3", and hauling around too much weight on his broken frame of a body. Twenty years ago,[..]
She stood across the table from me unable to speak. A catch in her throat, she said. You see, I read your other book, A Silence of Mockingbirds, the one on Karly Sheehan. I started following your blog. It was such a powerful book. Can[..]
This was posted first at the Vietnam Memorial Wall Foundation blog. By Karen Spears Zacharias Some people know them as the “Yellow Hatters”, the familiar park service volunteers dressed in bright yellow shirts and matching hats who stand ready at The Wall. Ready to help with a pencil[..]
