My friend Sean has a few;<\/p>\n
My mother\u2019s axiom, however, is my all-time favorite: \u201cIt\u2019ll be okay.\u201d<\/p>\n
It might sound like a simple phrase, but my mother said this often. Whenever things were running off the rails. Whenever a girl broke my heart. Whenever I lost my job. Whenever I cried. Whenever I had a common cold that I believed to be, for example, tuberculosis, she said these words. I needed her to say them.<\/p>\n
She also said: \u201cCleaning your plate means \u2018I love you.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
And this is why I was an overweight child.<\/p>\n
I could keep going all day.<\/p>\n
This one is from my elderly friend, Mister Boots: \u201cThat smartphone is making you stupid.\u201d<\/p>\n
My grandfather said: \u201cAnything worth doing is worth waiting until next week to do.\u201d Then he\u2019d crack open another cold one.
\nSaid the man named Bill Bonners, in a nursing home, from his wheelchair during an interview: \u201cI never wanted to be a husband, I really didn\u2019t want that. But I just couldn\u2019t breathe without her around me.\u201d?? (I love this one.)<\/p>\n
Mister Bill died only four days after his wife passed.<\/p>\n
And one childhood evening, I was on a porch with my friend\u2019s father, Mister Allen James who was whittling a stick, and he said: \u201cBoys, if you marry \u2018up,\u2019 you\u2019ll have to attend a lotta parties you don\u2019t wanna go to. You wanna be happy, marry someone who knows her way around a supermarket.\u201d I never forgot it.<\/p>\n
On the day of my father\u2019s funeral, a preacher came through the visitation line and said: \u201cNo man ever truly dies. Not really.\u201d<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve said this at a few funerals myself because I believe it.<\/p>\n
Said the seventh-grade teacher named Miss Rhonda, who was passing around a basket for students to place cellphones into during an presentation I was doing at a public school:
\n\u201cPlaying on your phone in public is like peeing in a parking garage; unless it\u2019s a life-or-death emergency, it\u2019s gross.\u201d<\/p>\n
From my pal\u2019s father, Mister Jimmy: \u201cWhen you\u2019ve loved a good woman, all poetry starts to make sense.\u201d<\/p>\n
From my father: \u201cA man is ugliest when he\u2019s jealous.”<\/p>\n
And I love this one, from my uncle, the Missionary Baptist preacher. \u201cThe secret to happiness is to not want anything.\u201d<\/p>\n
And this one: \u201cWhen you\u2019re older, you\u2019ll realize that being right ain\u2019t nearly as fun as getting along is.\u201d Elderly Mister Tommy said that while we were fishing.<\/p>\n
Said my friend Louis: \u201cI like cats better than dogs. Dogs don\u2019t judge you, or hold things against you. A guy can be a real jerk and still be a dog guy. But if you\u2019re not nice to a cat, he\u2019ll burn your house down while you sleep.\u201d<\/p>\n
My aunt\u2019s immortal words: \u201cI can tolerate a lot of things, but ignorance ain\u2019t one of them.\u201d<\/p>\n
And my friend, the hospital chaplain, who died last year: \u201cI never met a man who was dying that wasn\u2019t at peace with it. There\u2019s something mysterious that happens, I can\u2019t explain it. That\u2019s why, even if I were an atheist, I\u2019d still have to believe in Heaven. Not because I\u2019ve seen it myself, but because I\u2019ve seen the people who\u2019ve seen it.\u201d<\/p>\n
And my friend, the author, who once told me: \u201cTo be a writer is to be a homeless guy who can type really fast.\u201d<\/p>\n
My friend, Lyle: \u201cDon\u2019t try to hit a home run, just sit down, eat a hotdog, and let someone else strike out.\u201d<\/p>\n
From my old boss: \u201cWhen you\u2019re a kid, you wanna be an adult so bad you can taste it. But when you\u2019re an adult, all you are is fat.\u201d<\/p>\n
A deacon once told me: \u201cBiloxi, Mississippi, was invented by Episcopalians for Baptists.\u201d<\/p>\n
My granddaddy once spoke about choosing friends: \u201cDon\u2019t ever go fishing with anyone who you wouldn\u2019t let marry your sister.\u201d<\/p>\n
And this one\u2019s from me:<\/p>\n
I hope you never forget the people who made you the person you are today. I hope their words stick with you. And may I forever remember my mother\u2019s gentle wisdom, no matter how bad life seems, no matter what kind of sadness surrounds me.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019ll be okay.\u201d<\/p>\n
Because I believe it will.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
My friend Sean has a few; My mother\u2019s axiom, however, is my all-time favorite: \u201cIt\u2019ll be okay.\u201d It might sound like a simple phrase, but my mother said this often. Whenever things were running off the rails. Whenever a girl broke my heart. Whenever I lost my job. Whenever I cried. Whenever I had a … <\/p>\n