1. The Roots.
I have this old green makeup box from the 60’s that my great grandmother left to me. In it are pictures and in each picture there’s a different story.

2. I Think Shakespeare Meant To Write About Alabama.

Every time I see the picture of my grandmother as a teenager holding the hand of her fiancé, I replay the story in my head:
When my grandmother was fifteen she met my grandfather who was a couple years older.
“If the Beatles and the Eagles started a band together, what would they be called,” he would ask her.
“What?” She would act as if she hadn’t heard the joke a hundred times before.
“The Beagles.”
They got married and then pregnant. But when my grandmother was seven months pregnant, my grandfather was shot and died shortly after.

3. Breast Cancer Awareness Life.
I remember my father’s mother lying in a hospital bed in the living room. She was bald then, the only way I remember her. I forget sometimes that being bald wasn’t natural for her. It wasn’t her choice. I forget what she looked like before that.
I would climb up in the hospital bed and on her legs, hoping not to hurt her. From my understanding, she was just really sick and being sick meant being touched hurt. But I would forget something. My drink or my not-so-stuffed-anymore dog. So I would carefully climb down and when I got back up I’d stick my thumb in my mouth for just a few seconds before she’d jerk it out.


4. I Think My Father is Jim Morrison.
There’s a rumor that Jim Morrison never died, but ran away. They say he set the whole thing up with his girlfriend, Pam. And the more I get to know my father, the more I believe this.
My father’s a big man with curly hair and a beard who writes poetry and draws crazy pictures to go with the poems. He sings, too and it’s beautiful.

5. Barbie Girl.
While my father was being Jim Morrison, my mother was being indestructible Barbie. My mother was a blonde with a perfect body and a smile whiter than the February snow.
But what you find on the outside isn’t always what’s on the inside.
On the inside, my mother was still beautiful. But she was fierce and determined and knew what she wanted. I’m sure she’d gotten that from my grandmother.

6. A Penny a Snap
Nina ended up remarrying a man that she met at a line dancing joint. He was the most successful man that I’d ever met and it had nothing to do with money. But it was because he had anything he could ever ask for; five kids, a good wife, a good job, and a vegetable garden behind his house.
Amongst these vegetables were green beans. He would say, “I’ll tell ya’ what yen’s needs to do! You need to start snappin’ them green beans and for each one you snap I’ll give you a penny! How ‘bout that?”
I’d agree and after four baskets of green beans, each holding a hundred, my fingertips were swollen and my hands were covered in dirt.
I never got my four dollars.