Thank you. I was so out of it when I wrote this. I don't remember writing it. But Mom was, indeed, love.

Do: get a wig with Brazilian hair, stay off of Google, be kind to nurses. Do not: answer the phone after 9 pm. — 1.Don’t Google anything about Stage 4 pancreatic cancer. 2. Don’t. Google. Anything. About. Stage. 4. Cancer. Period. 3. Do not answer the phone at 10 pm. It’s somebody who has a friend who knows a guy who has a miracle cure for cancer. 4. Do not answer the phone at…

People have asked me why I didn’t leave him. He would tell me if you try to leave me, I will come to Colonial Beach and blow you to bits, and I am sure he would have done exactly what he said. My mother’s breathing barely moves the blankets. I…

My grandmother kept the stories. Then she told them to us. And then she wrote them down. We found them last year. — “I was born on April 4, 1921, in a beautiful two-story house.” For years, my mom and I asked my Grandma to write her stories down, and now, in the middle of a pandemic, I’m holding 50 pages of blue-lined notebook paper filled with Grandma’s flowing handwriting. …

In other words, what you write when you’re asked how you write — Two months ago, somebody asked “how do you write? What is your process?” Questions you’d forgotten about until today, when somebody else asked. And you remembered this from January. Today, you put on your Baby Yoda pajama pants and a t-shirt and walk downstairs to make a bowl of cereal…

And acting on her own agency is what makes Biles the G.O.A.T. — It’s pretty apparent that in the U.S.of.A., most of us are expendable, athletes more than others. Too many people expect others to destroy their bodies and minds so they can be entertained. So many people confuse teamwork and abuse, and think sportsmanship requires a special brand of self-flagellation. But all…

And it’s the best metaphor for absolutely everything. — You’re pacing the kitchen, listening to Brene Brown talk about vulnerability. You’re also thinking about critical race theory, and today’s rocket launch to the moon, and you’re stirring pancake batter. You switch off Brene, turn on the TV. There’s the rocket, headed toward the moon. You blink. It looks like…

He’s now an ancestor. And I cannot stop crying. — It’s 9:05 pm, and the rest of the world is watching “Black Panther,” mourning the death of actor Chadwick Boseman. I can’t watch. It’s too hard, this one. They all are hard. But this one … You wouldn’t think a flick about a comic book character could be called “uplifting,”…

As Mama told me of our enslaved ancestors, she also made some predictions, and I imagine she is raising a fist now — Every year for Juneteenth, Great-Grandma Lavinia would tell me the same stories. Lavinia was born in 1897, and while she had a temper and would starve a neighbor’s cows faster than she’d say his name, she was also known as the gentlest of healers. She watched for signs and listened…