Author: Kevin Stone

     I jolted awake with her scream. Was I dreaming? I heard Grace scream, clear as anything. As I thought it over, her voice rang down the hall. 

 “Kill it!” she yelled.  

I jumped to my feet, the swivel chair rolled quickly across the room and I nearly fell as I tried to get past it to the hallway. I pushed the chair back into the room and stopped in the doorway. The hall was dark, save for the light from my office. I’d napped into the early evening, I’d guessed, because the window was dark. The short hallway to our bedroom was fifteen feet long, at most, but our darkened bedroom appeared to be a mile away. Grace always kept a night light lit in our bathroom, to light our frequent trips as we grew older, and its faint glow emanated from the room. I hesitated a second before heading down the hall. It was fear, but fear mixed with wonder, that stopped me. “Kill what?” I thought. Something about it was more familiar than just her voice. My curiosity won over my fear and I walked slowly down the hall.  

I stood in the doorway of our bedroom and stopped. I stared at the mirror in the corner for a moment, the night light glowing from the bathroom barely illuminating the room enough to keep from walking into furniture. The glass reflected the dark forms of the bed and dresser, but no Grace. I stepped into the room and raised my hand to the light switch. Before I reached it, her sad and frightened voice said 

 “Please kill it, Nathan.” 

 It wasn’t a shriek, just her familiar and beautiful voice. I froze. Was I going crazy? The words were hers, and I had the feeling that we’d had this same conversation many times before. Maybe I was going crazy. What the heck, I thought.  

“Kill what, hon? I don’t see anything.”  

My words sounded like someone else’s there in that supposedly empty room. I didn’t have to wait long. 

 “There’s a spider! Please kill it!” she answered.  

Then I remembered all the times we’d had this conversation. I was the spider/bug/mouse killer in our house. My bold wife, independent and self-reliant, hard headed and contrary on every other occasion, was deathly afraid of critters, bugs and, especially, spiders. I left the light off and walked the three steps to stand at the foot of the bed. I was aware that this was the exact spot where Grace had died, but I looked at the dark mirror and examined it. There was a huge house spider in the lower left corner of the glass. I turned to the dresser and retrieved one of Grace’s magazines and rolled it into an instrument of death. I turned back to the mirror, weapon in hand, and moved slowly to get close enough to swat it. It moved slightly, just an inch, and Grace’s unmistakable whimper reached my ears as I hit the beast with the tightly rolled up glamour mag. The sound of Grace’s voice had startled me and I hit the mirror with a little more force than I’d intended. I was on target, as the now juicy bug could attest to, but I’d also cracked the corner of the mirror. Hearing no more from Grace, and seeing nothing but the dim furniture of our bedroom reflected back at me, I took the magazine into the bathroom and dropped it into the trash can. I unrolled some toilet paper to wipe off the mirror and stepped back into the room. As I knelt down to wipe off the remains, I examined the damaged mirror. It wasn’t much of a crack, thin and only three- or four-inches long. Should be okay, I thought, and stood up. Grace stood on our bed, looking relieved, clutching the sides of her pink and white dress. I stared into the mirror, amazed. She couldn’t be there, but she was. I didn’t blink. Or speak. I just watched her as she slowly stepped off of the bed and moved to me. The room was colder now, and I could see my breath in the mirror. She was standing inches from me, with tears in her eyes, despite the loving smile on her face.  

“My hero” she said.  

Then she put her arms around me from behind and lay her head down on my shoulder. I felt it all. Her hands were cold, but then again, they’d always been cold when she was alive.  I slowly turned from the dark glass and embraced my wife. When she lifted up her head and stared into my eyes, I held her face in my hands and wiped her tears away gently with my thumbs. Her green eyes glistened as she pulled my head down to whisper close in my ear. 

“I need you to do something else for me, darlin.” she said. 

Then everything went black. 

Until next week… 

God bless Y’all! 

     I sat at the foot of the bed for what seemed like an hour. I knew what I’d seen. I didn’t imagine it. My dead wife had been standing there in the reflection of the mirror, smoothing over the wrinkles of her new dress when I’d switched off the light. I saw her. She was smiling, too. It was less than a second. She disappeared with the light. I’d stood there, in shock, staring at the full-length mirror across the room. It had stood in that same corner for over twenty years. It was a gift from her mother, before she had passed. Grace had stood in front of that mirror every day of her life. She’d check her make-up, or her clothes, turning and eyeing herself in rueful detail. This last time she had smiled. She’d been dead for six months, but she smiled.  

     I’m not a superstitious man. I believe in God. I go to church, pretty much every Sunday. I believe in Heaven and Hell. I know that my wife was saved and that I’ll see her there one day. I just don’t know what to think about seeing her smiling back at me in that mirror. I don’t think I’m any crazier than I was when she was alive. Maybe when you lose it, you’re not aware that you’ve lost it. I don’t know why I saw her, but I know it was real. I sat at the foot of the bed, inches from the spot she’d died, and stared into that glass. She was nowhere to be seen. When I finally left the room, I stood there in the hallway, watching the mirror as I flipped that switch again. She was nowhere to be seen. 

      I spent that night, and all the next day, in my office. I searched the internet for every connection between mirrors and the afterlife. It was like sifting through sand to find a grain of salt. There were plenty of references. Lots of so-called supernatural phenomena, legends and traditions. A whole lot of dead ends, if you’ll pardon the pun. The most reoccurring theme that matched my experience was one of the oldest traditions about mirrors and death, and I one that I was already aware of. You’re supposed to cover mirrors with a cloth when someone dies, so that their soul won’t become trapped in the home. My family is Scots-Irish. I can remember my grandmother actually doing this when my grandfather passed away in their house. She went through the house and covered every single mirror with sheets. Even before that, she had unplugged the wall clock in the room that he died in. I wish I had understood more about those traditions. The myth says to cover the mirrors for three days after the death, or the spirit might be distracted by the mirror and think themselves alive, and then be trapped in it. The clock was stopped to let the spirit know that time means nothing to them any longer, and to reassure them that they aren’t being “rushed” to the afterlife. I had followed none of those traditions. Maybe it wouldn’t have mattered, had Grace not died right there in front of her mirror.   

     It’s been six months since she died. For only one fleeting moment have I seen my Grace in the mirror since she passed. Why hasn’t she shown herself to me? In my grief and depression, you’d think I would be ripe for a haunting. Susceptible, you might say. But no. Just this once. And she’s smiling. What has she got to smile about? All of this fluttered around in my brain as I slipped into unconsciousness, slumped in front of my computer. My dreams held no answers, just more dark hallways leading to the dark glass of the mirror in my room. Her shrieking scream woke me.  

      Join me next week for the third installment. 

God bless Y’all.    

     October is here. The greenery fades, and the cold winds begin to blow. The hot days of summer are giving way to chilly mornings that make our bones hurt. We begin to dread the coming of the cold and dreary time when living things seem to die all around us. Man has endured all of this by keeping the fires burning throughout the night, locking their door and curling up with a good book. Some of us like to read gay stories with happy ever-afters, while there are many of us that prefer the kind that give you goosebumps and make you scared to walk across the room and turn out the light. I’m going to tell you a story that won’t end until just before Halloween. I’ll let you decide which of those kinds of stories it is.  (Note: The following is a five-part story of fiction. No person, living or dead, is represented. The fear, however, is real.) 

     She died on a Tuesday. They said it was an aneurism. She’d complained of a headache for three days. She did that often, but neither of us thought it was so serious. Her last day on this earth was spent trying on dresses for our grandson’s upcoming wedding. I was in the yard, clearing branches after a thunderstorm the night before, and found her in a crumpled heap in front of her full-length mirror in our bedroom. Grace would have turned sixty-two in September. She died alone and left me the same way.  

     Sloane, our grandson, postponed the wedding. His fiancé, Gloria, was understanding and patient. She knew that her betrothed and his grandmother were very close and that his heart was shattered. They lost the deposit on their dream venue, but the winery graciously allowed them to reset the date without another deposit. We buried Grace on a cold and windy late September morning. I had them dress her in the pink and white dress that she’d last worn. She was as beautiful as death would allow her to be. My only memory of the funeral was the closing of the casket lid as I sat for an eternity on that front pew, knowing that I’d never see Grace again. It was a startling realization in that moment. The love of my life was gone. The noise of the lid closing was barely audible to those around me. To me the noise was a deafening crescendo, as a mountain fell between us. My Grace was gone.  

     That was nearly six months ago. My daughter called me yesterday to tell me about the new date for the wedding. It was less than a week away. I didn’t need to do anything, just dress and show up. My daughter Sara called, or came by the house, almost daily since Grace passed. She knew I had withdrawn from the world and tried so hard to get me out of the house. It had been a tough winter. We’d spent most of our lives in that house. I took care of the maintenance, and repair, as best I could. I’m not much of a handy man, but it’s still standing. Grace did everything else. She made that house come alive. She decorated it with love and good taste. She wisely allowed me keep all of my gaudy trophies and memorabilia in my office, along with my books. I spent almost all of my time in there nowadays, staring through the window in front of my desk. Waiting on what, I didn’t know.  

     I walked into our old bedroom, still cold and dark since her death, and flipped the light on. I passed the mirror that watched me go into the spacious walk-in closet and retrieve my one good suit and dress shoes. Ignoring my own reflection, I returned to the doorway and turned to look into the room we’d once shared a lifetime ago. My eyes fell upon the bed, covered in the same homemade quilt she’d bought on our anniversary, years ago. I glanced at her side table, her glasses still there. The room was as she’d left it, and me, six months ago. As I flipped the light switch off to leave, knowing I couldn’t bear to stay, I saw her standing in the mirror. In the millisecond of time it took for the light to go off after I flipped the switch, she was standing there, in that pink and white dress, her hands smoothing out the dress along her side, and her smile as bright as day. I turned the light back on at once, but the mirror held only the empty room, with me staring across the room.  

To be continued… 

    If I could take a time machine back to nineteen seventy-nine and meet my fourteen-year-old self, I’m pretty sure I know what I’d tell that handsome young man. I’ve given it a lot of thought as I watch my grandchildren enter into their early teens and I think it’s sage advice to them, even today. I’ll share my advice with you, but first let’s look at today’s modern teen.

    They have technology that far surpasses what I had back then. It doesn’t take much to beat a phone, the television, radio and newspapers. Gossip travels instantaneously over the internet. All of my knowledge came from friends or an encyclopedia, and they have facts at their fingertips with the internet. But technology only matters if it’s trustworthy. Just because it’s on the internet, doesn’t make it true. They have bullies on the internet. I got to face a beat-down from those guys in person. We played “the dozens” in school. They said things about “my momma” that weren’t very true, or sensitive, or kind, just to get a response from me. We learned how to deal with them face to face.

    Kids today get to hear about things that I never did. Sexual orientation, gender choices, gay rights, and trans gendered people were either not an issue, or didn’t exist in my fourteen year-old world. Now, they hear about it daily. As an adult, I find myself having to look most of this stuff up on the internet to try to understand what’s going on in the same world where they hear about this stuff from their friends at school. At that age, I was confused about how I was ever going to kiss a girl. Sounds simpler, but it didn’t feel that way at the time.

     When I was fourteen, I didn’t like myself. I had zero confidence in myself. How could I? I was fat, slow, not good at anything, and girls never gave me a second look. I was outstanding in nothing. I was a bookworm, a nerd. I saw myself as a loser. It took me years to gradually come out of that feeling. And that’s all it was: a feeling. When your body starts changing with adolescence, your brain and body goes a little insane. No one pops into this world with confidence, you earn it with experience. And that takes time. When you’re fourteen, a day lasts forever. Tomorrow never gets here fast enough. Everything good is coming “tomorrow”, too. It’s never right now. Everyone around you has their crap together but you. The feeling that you are the one kid in the world that doesn’t “get it” is real. The feeling that you never get the feeling you want, the body you want, the friends you want and the smarts you want sits on your soul and crushes it. You feel as if you live in a pit of despair.

    No matter the technology, the generation today is really no different from the one I grew up in. The kids have the same confusion, just with a wider range of subjects and issues. People’s nature doesn’t change, just the scenery around us. If I could step out of my time machine and have a short conversation with myself, I think this is what I’d say:

    You have time. Experience life and enjoy it. Don’t let anyone tell you that you’re not perfect just the way you are, because you are. You will grow. Give yourself time to experience life and learn how to make decisions. Don’t take issues too seriously, because they’re not your responsibility yet. Be a kid. Have fun while you have the luxury. The luxury of time. It doesn’t last. Be a bit nutty, silly or outlandish. Just don’t take it too seriously. There’ll be time enough for that, later. Look at this old man in front of you and know that our life has it’s seasons. You are Spring and Summer right now. Revel in it. Live it to it’s fullest.

I think I’d listen, but maybe not. I do know one thing that my teenage self would say:

Shouldn’t you be doing the same thing, Old Man?

And I’d be right.

God bless Ya’ll.

    Politics are confusing. The people who run for office and, ultimately, run the government, are mostly lawyers and rich people who use the system to advance their own agendas and stay in office. You have to have money to get into politics, or you have to have the backing of people who do. People who give you money have influence with you. Nobody gets into office by themselves. Everybody wants something. Some people want noble things like fair laws, equitable taxation, dependable care for the old, sick and poor. Some people simply want more power. Some people want a mixture of both of these things. It’s our job, as voters, to weed out the last two from the first group and put them in office. It’s getting radically harder to find out who is which group. It’s tough finding an honest person running for office. They’re as rare as hen’s teeth.

    I came of age, as a voter, just in time to vote for Ronald Reagan. Our fortieth president was running for re-election against Walter Mondale in 1984 and I helped him do it. I was nineteen years old, those forty years ago. In their debate, which I might add was a very civil and respectful discussion between two men that knew how to speak to one another without hate or hostility while disagreeing whole heartedly,

    The mediator asked Reagan if, as the oldest president to date, would he be able to handle the rigors of the life of president. Reagan made a joke of it and said that he wouldn’t make age an issue. He wouldn’t exploit his opponent’s youth and inexperience. Mondale was fifty-six at the time. Reagan was seventy-three. Reagan quoted Seneca (or Cicero, he wasn’t sure which) in paraphrase:

“If it were not for the Elders correcting the mistakes of the young, there would be no state”

    Mondale, coincidentally, was Jimmy Carter’s vice-president and had chosen a woman running mate, Geraldine Ferraro. They made history with her candidacy, but didn’t win. It took the country a long time until we could bring ourselves to vote for women, and people of all races, to run our government. We got here, though. We’ve also found that, despite being more open to equity in our candidates, they still all fall into those same three categories I mentioned. Those who want to do good, those who want power, and those who want some (or all) of both. Maybe we’re not as advanced as we’d like to think. We still need people who are adults (aged or not) to correct our mistakes.

    I’m a Baptist, but the Catholic Pope Francis summed up this election pretty well this week. The Jesuit turned Pope has a tendency to speak his truth plainly, a trait I love and respect. He was asked his advice to Catholic voters in the November U.S. presidential election. He said they must choose the “lesser of two evils” because “both are against life”. He referred to Kamala Harris on her support for abortion rights, and Donald Trump for closing the door to immigrants.

“Sending migrants away, not allowing them to grow, not letting them have life is something wrong; it is cruelty,” he said.

“Sending a child away from the womb of the mother is murder because there is life. And we must speak clearly about these things.” he also said.

    He finished with “One must vote. And one must choose the lesser evil. Which is the lesser evil? That lady or that gentleman? I don’t know. Each person must think and decide according to his or her own conscience.”

Well said.

    If you think I’m still confused about politics, you’d be right. I want to vote for someone who has the people of this nation at the top of their priorities. An honest person, who humbles themselves to do the right thing, who will be strong for the country, fair to our neighbors, and not a bully. A person of competency, without a huge ego, and will not pander to the far left, or the far right. A person who won’t use the military as the world’s police force, but will protect its people. A person who would give their life for the people, and not throw the people away to get what they want. Just one good person.

I wish Jesus would run for office.

God Bless Y’all.

    I wake up every morning feeling older than the day before. Of course I passed my fifty-ninth year a couple of weeks ago, while on vacation, and I deserve it. In that week we traveled to the Gulf, Orange Beach specifically, and just driving that far takes a toll on my old bones. I even walked up the one hundred and seventy-seven steps of historic Pensacola Lighthouse without break anything or suffering much. I was amazed at myself. Now I feel it. Sometimes our brain and body cooperate to help us get us through the things we put our bodies through. Sometimes it doesn’t cooperate at all.

    I received a letter recently from one of my two regular readers. I met this lady at my estate sale last spring, and she is the only person to ever receive an autograph from me. She even let me take a selfie with her. Then I got her name wrong when I wrote about her in my column. Sometimes our memory doesn’t cooperate with our brain very well, either. Ms. Marilee is a local resident and wrote to me, via the newspaper, to ask me to write about chronic pain. She suffers from it herself, due to post-shingles neuropathy, and told me that “it steals your serenity”. Now, I gripe a lot about getting older, and I don’t feel as good as I used to, but I can’t pretend to know how Marilee feels. I do have a couple of people in my life that I think may.

    My sister, Pam, has fought cancer for a long time, now. She has suffered through radiation and chemo treatments that would put my own radiation experience to shame. She still goes regularly to get a treatment at the Kirkland Cancer Center, a great organization that helped me as well. All through her experiences I have seen her hurt. When I talk to her about it, she just acts like it’s a normal part of what she has to do to keep on living. She takes living seriously nowadays, too. She travels. She sees friends often. She does things like snorkeling and stomping grapes at the winery. She enjoys life as much as anyone I know. Even through the pain.

    I have a daughter-in-law that suffers from Lupus. She’s a nurse. She has two beautiful children, who just happen to be my grandchildren. She gets up every morning and goes to work. Her joint pain gives her problems. She runs fevers randomly. She gets sick easily. She’s had covid more times than anyone I know. But she keeps getting up and living. I’m sure she hurts a lot some days, and never mentions it. She’s been the only breadwinner in her house, in the past, and knows that her children count on her. Even now, married to a hard-working husband who helps her with everything, she is devoted to pressing through her own pain to care for her family. Connie is a trooper. I don’t know how she does it, but I know it involves love.

    When I met you, Marilee, I didn’t know you were hurting. All I saw was an interesting woman who liked yard sales and made my entire day better by admitting that you actually read my column in the newspaper. You smiled and put up with my selfie, and my odd sense of humor. I couldn’t see your pain. You didn’t point it out, or wear it like a badge for anyone to see. You were living, interacting, and doing what you liked to do: shopping for bargains amid the piles of my semi-organized junk. That’s the most important thing I think I can say about pain. You just have to keep living through it. Do what you love. Be around who you love. Even when it hurts. Even when they don’t know you’re hurting.

    Thank you for writing to me, Marilee. I’ll pray for you not to hurt today. In the meantime, keep doing whatever you love. That’s what livings all about, after all. 

God bless Y’all.

    I wake up every morning feeling older than the day before. Of course I passed my fifty-ninth year a couple of weeks ago, while on vacation, and I deserve it. In that week we traveled to the Gulf, Orange Beach specifically, and just driving that far takes a toll on my old bones. I even walked up the one hundred and seventy-seven steps of historic Pensacola Lighthouse without break anything or suffering much. I was amazed at myself. Now I feel it. Sometimes our brain and body cooperate to help us get us through the things we put our bodies through. Sometimes it doesn’t cooperate at all.

    I received a letter recently from one of my two regular readers. I met this lady at my estate sale last spring, and she is the only person to ever receive an autograph from me. She even let me take a selfie with her. Then I got her name wrong when I wrote about her in my column. Sometimes our memory doesn’t cooperate with our brain very well, either. Ms. Marilee is a local resident and wrote to me, via the newspaper, to ask me to write about chronic pain. She suffers from it herself, due to post-shingles neuropathy, and told me that “it steals your serenity”. Now, I gripe a lot about getting older, and I don’t feel as good as I used to, but I can’t pretend to know how Marilee feels. I do have a couple of people in my life that I think may.

    My sister, Pam, has fought cancer for a long time, now. She has suffered through radiation and chemo treatments that would put my own radiation experience to shame. She still goes regularly to get a treatment at the Kirkland Cancer Center, a great organization that helped me as well. All through her experiences I have seen her hurt. When I talk to her about it, she just acts like it’s a normal part of what she has to do to keep on living. She takes living seriously nowadays, too. She travels. She sees friends often. She does things like snorkeling and stomping grapes at the winery. She enjoys life as much as anyone I know. Even through the pain.

    I have a daughter-in-law that suffers from Lupus. She’s a nurse. She has two beautiful children, who just happen to be my grandchildren. She gets up every morning and goes to work. Her joint pain gives her problems. She runs fevers randomly. She gets sick easily. She’s had covid more times than anyone I know. But she keeps getting up and living. I’m sure she hurts a lot some days, and never mentions it. She’s been the only breadwinner in her house, in the past, and knows that her children count on her. Even now, married to a hard-working husband who helps her with everything, she is devoted to pressing through her own pain to care for her family. Connie is a trooper. I don’t know how she does it, but I know it involves love.

    When I met you, Marilee, I didn’t know you were hurting. All I saw was an interesting woman who liked yard sales and made my entire day better by admitting that you actually read my column in the newspaper. You smiled and put up with my selfie, and my odd sense of humor. I couldn’t see your pain. You didn’t point it out, or wear it like a badge for anyone to see. You were living, interacting, and doing what you liked to do: shopping for bargains amid the piles of my semi-organized junk. That’s the most important thing I think I can say about pain. You just have to keep living through it. Do what you love. Be around who you love. Even when it hurts. Even when they don’t know you’re hurting.

    Thank you for writing to me, Marilee. I’ll pray for you not to hurt today. In the meantime, keep doing whatever you love. That’s what livings all about, after all. 

God bless Y’all.

    He’s my baby. He’ll turn thirty-five this November, but he’ll always be my baby. He entered an already crowded house (trailer) with two brothers, a sister, Mom and me. Love bounced off of those walls, and so did Timmy. He was a fast mover from the start. Quick with a smile and ready to dive into whatever looked fun to do, he usually left us all behind asking each other “Where’s Timmy? Where’d Timmy go?!” It’s been kind of a by-line for our family, even today. That kid was hard to keep up and even harder to catch. He threw himself into life with reckless abandon and revelled in it. I called him my “exclamation point”. He was God’s way of telling me “Okay, Kevin. This is the last one. That’s enough.” And he sure was.

    My baby grew up in a home with a wonderful, giving mother, who just happened to suffer with bipolar disorder, and clinical depression. I’ve written about Sam in this column in the past. She was an awesome woman. She had fire in her soul, love in her heart, and wanted to save the world and do everything good. After a decade of struggles, hospitals, medication and pain, she took her own life in 2004. Mental illness took her from us when Tim was just in elementary school.

    I’ve also covered my own alcoholism in this column. I’m nine years sober, but Tim got to live in a house with a drunk for many years. I didn’t show much of a good example to my children back then. No excuses. I regret showing my kids how to crawl into a bottle to deaden your pain. I can only show them how to stay out of it today and be there for them when they need help to make that journey themselves.

    Tim went to war when he was just nineteenth years old. He served in Iraq and Kuwait, driving trucks in convoys from Kuwait all over Iraq. He doesn’t talk much about it. He talks mostly about the people he served with, and you can tell how much love he has for them. A few things about base life and leaving his rifle on a truck bumper leaked out of him, but no nightmare stories you might expect from serving during the years of IED attacks on convoys, or mortor attacks on bases. Even before Tim left for Kuwait, he was in Fort Hood Texas when an Army psychiatrist killed thirteen people and wounded more than thirty, in a shooting on base. He pretty much kept it to himself, even though I tried to get him to talk about it or talk to someone else who’d been there. And he drank.

    It’s been over fifteen years since Tim served overseas. This past week he went to the VA and entered himself into rehab for alcoholism. His mind had wandered into the Dark Lands of contemplating suicide, and he knew he needed help. All the years of bottling things up and pouring booze on the problem didn’t make the thoughts go away. His love for his family was greater than his pride, so he reached out. It’s a simple thing, reaching out, but it’s hard for a man, the head of the household, to admit that he needs help. I know. I’m prideful, too. We get better together. No man is an island, as they say. My heart aches for him, but I know he’s going in the right direction.

    My son asked me to write about Veteran Suicide. I have written here about it before. It was full of statistics and numbers, and I researched it heavily. Over six thousand veterans commit suicide every year. During over two decades of the War on Terror, millions of Americans served this country, both overseas and here at home. They saw things we can’t imagine. Their rate of suicide is one and a half times the national average, and that’s just the people we have numbers on. But they are not numbers. They are the people you work with, go to church with, and see on the street every day. They’re not Rambo, or any mass shooting perpetrator. They walk around with memories of friends and places that haunt them. Some they want to forget. Most they can’t forget. They need us not to forget them, either. If you, or someone you know, needs help, they can text 988 for the Veterans Crisis Line. It will direct them to folks who can help walk them into finding people who can help. And you can pray for them. Every day. Because they aren’t numbers and statistics, they’re someone’s baby.

Y’all pray for my baby, Tim.

And God bless Y’all.

    When I was about eight years old, my Momma called the local radio station and requested my favorite Johnny Cash song to be played for my birthday. I remember listening to the radio, waiting on “Ring of Fire” to play with such rapt anticipation and wonder. We listened to it on the front steps of our house and it was a very cool thing to hear my name on the radio. I felt like a celebrity! My Momma made my birthday feel special, and I sure am thankful for her. She always made us feel special, not just on our birthdays, but she made it a big deal on that day. Shout out to all the moms who do that for your babies-they will love you so hard for doing that for them.

    This week I’m on vacation. I’m writing from Orange Beach, Alabama. I’m on the beach! The Gulf of Mexico is beautiful, the weather is perfect, and Laura Gail and I will be enjoying our time of leisure together with gusto. That means sleeping till seven a.m. at our age. Every now and then, we all need to stop running the rat race and take a break. Refill your emotional, mental and recreational tanks and have some fun. We already miss the grandbabies, but we will survive. Of course, we’ll bring them something back from the beach. Souvenir shells are laying all over the place around here! And they’re free!

    One last note. The difference between eight years old and fifty-nine isn’t that big. I still have problems making it to the bathroom on time. I still look funny in my own clothes. My brain doesn’t help my mouth say what I mean sometimes. I say a lot of stupid stuff that nobody understands. Especially when I reference movies that are now older than classics. I still get nervous around pretty girls. Just ask Laura Gail. I fumble talking to her every day. My favorite country artist is still Mr.Cash, but my favorite song of his is probably “I can’t help but wonder where I’m bound” and not “Ring of Fire”. Me and Older Johnny Cash have a lot more in common these days.

God bless Y’all!

The Old Couple cleans their house on a Sunday evening. The wife usually does it on Saturday, but the family was over for the August Birthday celebration that day. Church is on Sunday, and the grandchildren need their church as much as the couple does. The three-year-old loves the singing. After church, there was a trip to the local Wally World. Necessities were gathered, and toys for the tag-a-long grandchildren. By the time the kids are dropped off, the afternoon was halfway gone. A light lunch at the kitchen table. Leftover pulled pork, chips and a soft drink. The daughter, her thirty-eighth birthday looming on the following day, stopped in. A pleasant chat. She’d bathed the dogs while the couple went to church. She’s handy like that. The decision after lunch made itself. Neither of the couple had much energy left, so Nap Time beckoned. They take their positions in their respective recliners. The Woman puts the tv on a show about some true-life murder, with the volume down low. The Old Man dons his noise-cancelling headphones to keep out the nightmares. Such is the preparation for the Nap. It was a good nap for the Old Man. He seldom had bad ones. The Woman, not so much. She seldom had good naps. Unless the three-year-old napped with her, nestled in her lap. There is no better sleep than to sleep in the arms of someone who loves you unconditionally, and with their entire soul. Such is the love of a child, and the reason their grandparents love them the way they do. The cleaning must be done. It’s a fact. There’s no getting around it. The Woman’s entire life has told her that. Her mother indoctrinated her from an early age and cursed her with a work ethic that won’t allow chores to go undone. Put off till a bit later, maybe, but not neglected. To the Old Man’s dismay, it remains so. She cleans, so he cleans, too. Because he loves her, mostly. Also, because she won’t have it any other way. They listen to headphones and earbuds as they clean. Books, mostly. They both love novels, though their tastes seldom match. She leans towards mystery/romance and him towards westerns/biographies. They clean in the silence of the rooms, yet with words humming through their ears and minds. They transport into the author’s respective universes, with only the functional communication of cleaning passing between them. “Did you clean your bathroom yet?’ “Yes. You can mop.” The conversation went thus, until the house was clean. The dogs newly washed and dried blankets are placed in their beds, and they appreciatively curl up in them. The Old Man gives them one more loving rub-down and tells them good night, and that he loves them. They know this, but they love to hear it anyway. They lay down their heads for the night. The Old Man sits at the dining room table and listens to the sounds from down the hall. The Woman has finished her cleaning long ago, and is now ending her evening bathing ritual. The hair dryer humming tells him that she is almost done. The sound of her audio book afterwards tells him that she is sitting on the bed, listening for a stopping point to end the evening’s activities. The Old Man loves her rituals. She has many, but he loves them all. They all have purpose and a story. She will definitely tell him about the practicality of each one, if he dares to question any. He smiles. He knows that she loves to have order in her life, and will structure it properly if she finds any aspect of it lacking form, or reason. He loves that she tries to find order amid the chaos of life. He feels as if he is the opposite. He loves to find the chaos amid the order. It’s more fun that way, to him at least. They’re different in so many ways. Polar opposites, sometimes. Yet, they love each other. They care about what each other thinks, wants, feels and cares about. They’re the same in that way. Every day they grow older, and their life changes in so many ways, yet each still feel that way towards the other. It must come from the soul, this love. Some kinds of love need touch. Some need intellectual stimulation, and even others need conflict. The Old Couple just need to clean together. That’s called Serenity in my book. (Serenity: defined as “the state of being calm, peaceful, and untroubled; the absence of mental stress or anxiety.) I’m sure glad the Old Couple found each other. God bless Y’all.