Southern Woman on the Skids

  Today my mom is dying. All I could see when I walked  into her room was that little girl. That scruffy little girl sitting in the grass. Smirking at the camera.  I gave her lots of kisses goodbye. One for each grandchild she helped me raise. One for each friend of mine she loved like her own. One for each time she made me laugh. Or yell. Or cry. Or smile. Or feel loved.  Driving home Heather and I saw the most incredible sunset. It was beautiful and messy and bright and clinging to its moment in the sky.  I will remember beautiful loud Christmas Eve parties. Her quiet strength with Ziggy and Charlie. How she loved my friends. That she was flawed but always full of generosity. I will try my best to do her proud. 

  I am jumping back into my edits. The dream agent moment has passed and so I am just putting my head down and doing the work of writing again. My friend and editor has given me some great work to dig into so I am going to just put in my slippers, pour some more coffee and write. All the while the one year old has been talking. I’m serious. She can now say all kinds of things. Dog. Eat. Door. Ball. Mama. Dads. Baba. Arlie. Iggy. Uh Oh. Night night and book.  Zig has settled on about three colleges and is driven to make that future unfold. Charlie has a new sweet friend that she is excited about. And my Rob is healing.  It’s humbling to watch him. I couldn’t do it. But he faces each day with humor and grace and still makes me laugh. And blush.  I am so happy the holidays are here. The house is filled with music and cooking and that feels healing to me.  Now back to writing. 

  The weather is changing next week. It needs to change. We have been stuck in the heat in our house for too long. We need a breath of fresh air. We need to enjoy some mundane joy.  But it will change. It always does. I was driving to see Rob at the hospital today and I got to thinking about Thanksgivings when I was a kid. My aunt Carolyn had the big meal house. The one where there was room for all the people. Space to run.  When you are little and it’s cool outside and there is good food and everyone is happy, things seem possible. Anything can happen. Then you grow up and anything does happen.  It breaks you apart.  Things are bleak at the moment. There is no more hopeful rope to cling to. There is just life to live. So I think I have to let go of some things and just accept others. I have to see the hope in the little things; watching Rob with the kids; knowing I have old friends who love me and my little bookshop.  Things will change. Thanksgiving is al...

Sometimes life tries that tablecloth trick. the one where someone yanks the tablecloth off the table and miraculously everything stays right where it was. Or it doesn’t and shit goes everywhere. That’s what’s happening right now. I’m in the hospital waiting room while Rob is being prepped for spinal surgery.  The weather has changed. That’s a relief. So maybe with the winds changing life will release the death grip it’s had on everyone’s neck. My sister was talking to me last night. Trying to keep me calm.  “Everyone is in the shit right now.” She told me.  Sick kids, Mom drifting away, hospital stays, you name it, we have faced it down over the last few months. This week had one of those little miracles. Those split seconds of hope.  I’ll take what I can get.  I was at Target. Gathering supplies for thenext week while Rob is in the hospital. I opened my email.  Dear Megan,  Thank you for sharing BOOK CHAPTERS with us. Could you send us the complete ma...

  I had an archenemy as a kid. Not really. Just sort of an elementary scapegoat that I could lay the blame on in my mind. I was a funny kid that liked to read and be silly so my enemies stayed in my subconscious. But having a little girl, you see the mean girls rear their heads. Charlie is a lot like me. She marches to her own beat, and I love that. But sometimes that beat strikes the wrong chord and I see her cut off. Cut out of things.  And it sucks. I know the feeling. It stings just as bad as an adult. I am so spoiled with my childhood friends. At any moment they will have my back. They get me and they love me and my kids unconditionally. As I do them and theirs.  I was speaking with another mom just this week about how hard it is to watch from the sidelines as your child faces rejection or drama in social situations. How hard it is to bite your tongue and just hug them right. To snuggle next to them and tell them stories of all the awkward and hurtful moments you had...

  My mom was admitted to hospice today.  I prayed this morning, on the way to my ultrasound, clutching my steering wheel in the Atlanta traffic, “God, please just let this little baby be ok. Please let her heart be beating and let her be healthy. Please.” I was terrified that on the same day my mom was officially terminal I would lose my daughter. I mourned them both for that forty five minute drive. But I didn’t lose her. Baby girl Hunnicutt is growing ahead of schedule. Her little heart beat was strong and so was she. The doctors and nurses beamed at me, “She is perfect!” She is. She is perfect.  I was so happy. I wanted to call my mom.  Today was hard. Today it all sort of fell on top of me. The weight of it all. I can still smell my mom. I used to tuck my face into her neck when I was little. And I can still smell her mama smell.  So I did what any grieving woman would do. I scrolled through Zillow.  Many of you know I have a thing with houses. I ...

  I stay in touch with people. My close friends are women I have known since I was nine years old . So the fact that I message back and forth with a colleague from fifteen years ago isn’t all that strange. But what is strange is when she was cleaning out her desk and found THE manuscript. The manuscript I flew home to write with my mom when an agent replied to me asking for the first twenty pages. The only manuscript my mom and I wrote together. She is sending it to me and I cannot wait to get my hands on it. To hear my moms voice in it. To see if my writing has changed at all.  I am pregnant again. With a baby girl. We are over the moon. But my mom is dying. It’s happening faster and faster. I haven’t written because it’s all a little much. Life and death all rolled up into one.  That manuscript being found right when it did feels like more than a coincidence to me. I am so grateful that I have been given this little treasure. This moment in time with my mom. It reminds ...