Every wedding needs a story you can laugh at. Here’s one of ours. A beautiful setting at the Lodge on Crandall Pond. People gathered for the outside wedding, the sun drying up the morning rain. We got dressed at the venue. Our photographer (Nassif) captured us prepping; me in the bathroom, curlers in my hair, […]
Author: tammysuewilley
Free Bird
March of 1983 I hiked Kent Falls in Litchfield County with my friends Brett Pryor and his best buddy, Don Gismondi. Classmates, we all turned twenty that year. Along the trails we chatted about our upcoming epic trips, theirs to California and mine to Arkansas. Back home by June from our adventures, Brett called to […]
Compton Arkansas1983
March 1983 Spring was in the brisk air of Litchfield county the day I hiked Kent Falls with Don and Brett, wonderful friends whom I graduated with from Newtown High. While hiking the trails, we chit-chatted about our upcoming trips, theirs to California, mine to Arkansas. We were navigating some rocks on the trail when […]
Grab the Dusty Fringe
Something was wrong. I couldn’t shake it. I had been a little under the weather, but my home remedies weren’t working this time. On his way out the door to work, my husband told me to call the doctor, so I did. Although feeling a little out of it, I was able to drive myself […]
- perspective
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Life is Tough Out There
and my job is to toughen you up…said Dad’s belt or the back of his hand when he didn’t use words. The message was loud and clear one way or another that I so related to the song A Boy Named Sue. Father’s Day was the last time we had words between us. I was […]
Rejection of a Father
Rejection knows no boundaries. Rejection doesn’t care if you cut yourself, drink bleach, turpentine, alcohol or take drugs to soothe your pain. Rejection could care less if you are poor or rich or what ethnicity or religion you are. It lures you to fill the hole in your heart in ways you never dreamed. It […]
- courage
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Courage Takes Risk
Courage isn’t because you know the outcome, rather it’s about the risk you take to persevere through something! During your quarantine time-out are you finding an opportunity to rest and restore with cathartic reflection? Or is your isolation flooding your head with unrealistic worry? Perhaps you feel like you’ve regressed with unresolved issues? If worry […]
- fear
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Restoration…Walk It Out: the stairs
Fear of falling got me into a habit I didn’t know I was doing. Turn the light on and grip that banister before walking down the stairs…no matter whose house I was in…but especially mine. This weird behavior started when I was in high school and became part of my daily rhythm. Do you ever […]
Bury the Past to Stay Alive
If I walk into his hospital room will sunshine beams stream through the vertical blinds of the institutional window near his bedside? Will harmonious music fill the pensive air as I’m genuinely embraced by my dad? Will he hug me while whispering, “I’m sorry honey.” Will tears stream down our faces cleansing years of meanness […]
Crusty Bread Dipped in My Pain
From the fire came the laughter as the pain bled out its cry. From the ashes reared the mystery of the tears that never water. Why should they? So instead they falter. And when the hurt becomes so common that it’s numb to what it’s not, and the sigh no longer sighs because it’s breath […]