Monthly Archive

Sorry I didn’t continue sharing my Suite101 articles here. I kind of got sidetracked when I made a visit back home to meet my nieces when they were arranging to sell all the property– the home they grew up in, and the next-door (down the hill) home that their mother, my sister, and I grew up in. It was essentially my last visit back home, because the old homeplace doesn’t exist for us anymore as a place where we can meet. I guess this was what sparked my reminiscing through writing children’s picture books.

The first one, published in July, had to be “Little Girl Again” with the text being the poem by that title that I wrote about being my mother’s caregiver during her Alzheimer’s, around 30 years ago now.

Following close behind that first book, in August I wrote “Aunt Della’s Teacakes” about my Aunt Idella, my dad’s sister, who lived in the other side of our old farmhouse and also “Mama’s Quilts” from the poem by that title I had written about the quilts my mother made from old scraps of fabric cut from clothes we had worn in the past.

Then in September came “Daddy Farmer” about my hard-working farmer dad, and “Mama’s Biscuits” about my mother’s delicious baking and how that changed as she got older. October brought memories of “Picking Huckleberries on Ross Mountain” and “Flowers for Mama” which ended up with the purple flower I hold high in memory of her in the Alzheimer’s Association’s Walk to End Alzheimer’s.

I didn’t have much time at our November 1 Walk to read, but I was asked to speak during the opening ceremony, and I read all of “Little Girl Again” and then the last few pages of “Flowers for Mama”. It was my 28th consecutive year walking in memory of my mother.

In November I wrote “The Library Upstairs” about an old antique bookcase full of books upstairs in our old farmhouse, and I wrote “Mama Canned”, inspired by all the canning of fruits and vegetables on our farm that my parents had worked so hard on every summer and into the fall.

Then in December, it was “Christmas Past”, with the title from a poem I’d written, though I didn’t include the poem until the end and instead wrote a narrative describing our Christmases when I was growing up back home, 1955-1973 or so.

They all are available in paperback and Kindle eBook from Amazon and in hardback from Barnes & Noble, Books-a-Million, and many other online bookstores. All royalties go to the Alzheimer’s Association through my Walk to End Alzheimer’s. Enjoy, and Happy New Year!