HILARY HAMBLIN

Music blared while wind blew through my open car windows dragging with it the smell of spring, hope and blue sky. My husband and I had started the search for land where we could build our first home a few weeks earlier. We were talking seriously about starting a family. And it was Friday. A truck topped the hill in front of me and swerved into my lane. My pulse quickened. He must be going around something in the road. My eyes darted around. A line of cars filed past me in the

The sun shone across the gravel parking lot of my parents office that Friday afternoon. A few months earlier I moved home from college. Just a week earlier I started a new job in my hometown. I ate lunch with my parents most of the week. My dad stood on the other side of the car. If only I could remember the whole conversation. The most important words he said still stick with me. “Don’t let not having somewhere to live stop you from getting married. You can live in your gran

Coffee fresh from the Keurig wafts through the house. I study the box of chocolates my sister in law brought me earlier this week. One empty space already lies between the Sucre Dark and Chicory Caramel. In the other room my children chatter with the neighbor’s child about which ornament goes where on the tree. Outside decorations twinkle in the twilight. Thanksgiving wraps itself around me like a warm blanket fresh from the dryer. Seventeen years ago my parents loaded all my

Josh and I had been dating about six months when he took me to Memphis to meet his grandparents. Sometime after lunch they were talking about Josh’s aunt and uncle who lived in Arkansas. One of his grandparents said, “We could just drive up there.” The other one agreed. Josh and I had no other plans so we all hopped in their brand new Oldsmobile and took the drive into the delta of Arkansas. Granddad decided to take the “short cut” and since I’d never been to this part of Ark

We once received a check from God. More than once really, but the once stands out in my mind. In the early years of our marriage, we tried to hide the fact that we were broke. We both worked but Josh was still in school and we were paying college tuition and bills and trying to set up house. I budgeted $25 a week for our grocery shopping which meant coffee creamer was a luxury we could not afford. We could eat for 2 days on $2 thanks to coupons for Tuna Helper. And my mama wo