Month: August 2012

  • Root Little Pig

    Root Little Pig

    The blinds drawn, lights off, I leaned over Mama's hospital bed and rubbed her neck. "I don't know how you manage to be so strong," I said. "It's like my mama always told me," she answered. "Root little pig or die." My mother has spent[..]
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  • The Haint of Death

    The Haint of Death

    “This day is not a sieve, losing time. With each passing minute, each passing year, there’s this deepening awareness that I am filling, gaining time. We stand on the brink of eternity.”  Ann Voskamp When that soldier came to our little trailer house in 1966[..]
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  • The Healing of the Dying

    The Healing of the Dying

    Morrow County Courthouse A watercolor of Scottish man in a kilt playing the fiddle took the Judge’s Choice Award. I know because I was the judge who awarded it. I’m not sure what time we got home last night but when I stepped into the[..]
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  • How Does Your Tumor Grow?

    How Does Your Tumor Grow?

    A friend once told me how difficult it was for her to adjust to the military way of life. She had grown up a product of prosperity. Her father had discovered some necessary component to something in the music industry and had made a tidy[..]
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  • Wonders of the Brokenhearted

    Wonders of the Brokenhearted

      The argument over health care is politically-charged and I have nothing much to add to it other than choices matter. They can make the difference between life and death, between a good life or a miserable one. Mama has choices, and for this day I'm[..]
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  • Biscuits & Black Coffee Run

    Biscuits & Black Coffee Run

    Mama is sitting at the edge of her bed eating a biscuit with jam and drinking a tall black coffee from McDonalds, which Mama declares is pretty good coffee. I am the culprit who snuck the "real food" in. Mama says you can tell everybody[..]
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  • As Women Gather

    As Women Gather

    A week ago I was in a hospital in Spokane, Washington celebrating the birth of our first grandchild. There were tears that day, too, but of a different sort. Tears of joy. I remember little from all those religion classes I took at University but[..]
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  • Breast Pumps & the Fear of the Lord

    Breast Pumps & the Fear of the Lord

    I think a lot about words, how we use them and how prevalent certain words are. Recently I had a discussion with someone about breast pumps. There was a time in my life when breast pump was common terminology in our household and in conversations with friends. When[..]
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  • Bubba Boy’s Birthday

    Bubba Boy’s Birthday

    Thirty-three years ago today, I drank a bottle of Castor oil and got sicker than a yard dog with scours. This after I'd eaten half a watermelon.  This after I'd gone nearly four weeks overdue with my firstborn. It's not just some old wives tale.[..]
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