Imagine that one day your life will have mattered so much to someone that they commission an obelisk or ivory angel to your everlasting memory. Other headstones told different stories — worn inscriptions, stones beached by decades of sunlight and battering by rain. Even those told stories that the grave’s inhabitant had once held a place of love and honor to someone.

It never occurred to me that their lives were all that different from my own and they’ve never offered many details. But, oh, how I wish I had asked earlier!

… I did not grasp the significance of the fresh oranges, nuts and chocolates that filled our Christmas stockings. In addition to our stockings, my parents delivered wicker baskets with fruits and candies for their friends.

Over the last few months, I have signed the remaining copies of The Best Doctor in Town at area holiday festivals. I love to learn about the people stop by an have found unexpected connections to Southwest Virginia.

I am honored to tell you that one of my short stories was chosen for These Haunted Hills, the fifth anthology of Appalachian bone chilling short stories. In fact, my story is one of only eight original pieces selected. Therefore, I am truly humbled.

Food, wine and a good book. That’s the recipe for Cooks and Books – St. Paul, Virginia’s annual fundraiser for the Lyric Theater and Friends of the J. Fred Matthews Memorial Library.