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People always think being loved will change them. But that’s not true. It’s really, truly loving—with the kind of love you couldn’t take away even if you wanted to—that turns you inside out.
He had been the one my heart searched for.
How will I live without him?
I was a warrior.
No use crying over what could have been,
But life is like that. Sometimes the nothing moments are everything.
I am just one person.
I hope I made a difference in my short time.
I worry about leaving him behind, about what he will do. I worry that I have ruined his life, even though he says that I have made it.
A mother should never have to say goodbye to her children—even
leaving you is the worst thing I have ever faced.
Crying wouldn’t help.
Storytelling showed me that it’s not our failures that matter; it’s what we do after that counts.
hoping that they couldn’t see how I was dying inside.
intimidated by the great, wide world beyond the South.
I didn’t have any friends.
she always took the time to make sure people knew how much she loved them.
Southern, pearl-wearing, churchgoing, never-said-a-dirty-word-in-her-life mother—had
you are the best decision I ever made, and I will love you for all eternity. Even when I’m not here.”
I am a harper. Once I want to know something, I can’t think about anything else.
Human interaction wasn’t my favorite thing these days,
he had spent years living a life that must have felt like it was the wrong size and color.
I didn’t want to live a lie.
Every Southerner needed a batty relative living in the attic—or,
The ceiling remained blue all year long to keep the evil spirits away.
He had loved her in the way that every woman dreams of being loved.
I’m not totally unlovable.”
“My pie can solve absolutely anything,”
I was alone. Really, truly alone.
no one ever really knows all of anyone.
I wouldn’t make a scene; I’d never do something like that.
A mother shouldn’t have to make such decisions.
that Southern mother way of hers.
I understood needing to hold on to the past.
I’d never have wished this life for him.
Bless her precious, manicured, highlighted heart, no matter what storm was brewing in our family, she was as steady as the tide.
I had never heard my mother say “hell,” so, suffice it to say, I never brought it up again.
I loved her, but she had this propensity to act so damn scandalized by every little thing.
bless his heart—my
Deep down we’d both known this was exactly how this would end. But we were ladies, so we hadn’t said so.
Make up your corner of the world neat and tidy and it will be enough.
But I would worry about that tomorrow.
“I do believe I’m a little tired.”
Tired from decades of this emotional roller coaster, tired from worrying about where my daughter’s life would take her now, tired from the spoils and secrets of more than six decades.
It hasn’t happened to me often in my adult life, but sometimes you meet someone, and you just know you’re going to be friends forever.
Proper Southern ladies do not shout.
“Might as well be someone with a little tact and Southern charm.”
She is kind and warm, with a graciousness that exudes from every pore.
When I was around her, I always felt less than, through no fault of hers.
You’re pretty irreplaceable.”
