Category: My Evolution

  • My Uncle Bobby passed away this week. Daddy's younger brother. Like Daddy and the other men in his family, Uncle Bobby had suffered from heart and vascular problems for years, but it was a slow battle with cancer that took him away. He was a sweet man. In my heart I will always see him…

  • I might see some trick-or-treaters this evening. I'm excited about that. When you live a mile down a dirt road in a Hollow of few houses and no small children, Halloween is like any other night. Quiet. No one ever comes to your door. Even when my kids were actively hustling for candy, I had…

  • This is the way I remember it: Tom and I were driving down the highway, headed to Houston's Methodist Hospital for the first time, because Daddy was about to have surgery for an abdominal aneurism. I was pregnant with my first baby and worried about Daddy.  I was praying, praying, praying… …and then I was…

  • Images of my oldest brother Buster have hovered in my mind today. Today is his birthday. He would have been 65.  I wonder what he would have been like at 65? Would he have mellowed any at all? Probably not. He was too passionate, too creative, too energetic.  I try to imagine his curly black…

  •   As she has for more than ten years, my sister joined me and my girlfriends at the beach this past weekend. From my earliest memory, Brenda has been my closest friend, and, along with my mother, my role model and inspiration.  Despite the eight years between us and my bratty personality, when I was…

  • I just returned from my annual retreat with girlfriends to the coast – our 13th or 14th now, I can't remember which – where the sight and sound of the ocean renews my soul and invigorates my spirit. The bonding of girlfriends… the food… the kiss of the sun on my skin… the birds and…

  •   "Are you someone's grandmother?" he asked as soon as I walked into the classroom. I had to have him repeat it before I understood. My hearing isn't so great anymore plus he was missing his two front teeth! "No, I'm your substitute teacher." I could feel the air fizzling out of my bubble…the 1977…

  • Tom and I are off to immerse ourselves in 1977. In other words, we're going to my 35th high school reunion. (That number just slips through my brain without even registering – I can't be old enough to be out of school that long!) Tonight I'll go on a tour of my old high school…

  • Lord, take me where you want me to go;Let me meet who you want me to meet;Tell me what you want me to say; andKeep me out of your way. – Fr. Mychal Judge, FDNY (died 9/11/01)     Every year in late September, early October, I head to the coast with a group of…

  • I stepped out for my walk before the sun stretched into the Hollow this morning and right away considered running back in for a sweater…or at least a shirt with sleeves. A 'cold' front blew through our part of Texas yesterday, knocking the high temperatures down from the triple digits all the way to the…