I’m in a Holiday-Inn lobby. This place is overrun with people. The desk clerk tells me that most guests are evacuees from south and central Florida.

September 9th, 9:18 A.M.—Hurricane Irma is making landfall in less than 24 hours. Anxiety fumes are in the air—you could light a match and the room go up in flames.

I’m in a Holiday-Inn lobby. This place is overrun with people. The desk clerk tells me that most guests are evacuees from south and central Florida.

In the main area: televisions are playing—volume cranked high. A few families gather around screens with worried faces.

I meet a Miami man.

“I’m pretty stressed right now,” he says. “We’re crammed in two rooms. My mother’s eighty-three, man. She don’t travel well.”

If the hurricane hits where forecasts predict, he’ll lose his home and his business.

He goes on, “I worked eight years finding new clients. All those twelve-hour workdays, my livelihood is gonna disappear.”

He snaps his fingers.

“This is my wakeup call, dude,” he adds. “I’ve spent too much time with my business, not enough time with my son.”

I meet a woman. Late sixties, wiry, with white cropped hair.

“Lost my husband two months ago to cancer,” she says. “And this hurricane might

destroy our house, where we raised our kids.”

A few weeks ago, she started riding a bike to help fight depression. She brought the bike with her to help release nervous energy.

“I told God this morning,” she says. “Go ahead, take my house. It's all just stuff anyway. I'm just grateful to have my kids with me this weekend.”

I meet a man with a long beard. He is six-four, and roughly the size of a General Electric refrigerator. His family lives in Central Florida.

“I'm with my wife and son,” he says. “But my mama and baby sister are evacuating now, they're still stuck traffic.”

He shows me a cellphone photo of a traffic jam.

“My sister’s freaking out,” he says. “She’s twelve. I try to tell her funny stories to make her laugh.”

His…

I’ve seen her stand in a funeral line, shaking fifteen hundred hands. I’ve watched her work pitiful jobs, just to raise dimes for her children. I’ve heard her cry in the bathroom with the door shut.

DEAR SEAN:

I'm getting married on September 9th.

My old boyfriend of twenty years took his own life, I lost everything. I still have pain. But I really want to move forward with my new husband.

Can you give me some advice? I want to be the wife he deserves.

I understand if you don’t have time to answer,

HURTING BUT MOVING FORWARD

DEAR MOVING FORWARD:

I am in a hotel room. Hurricane Irma is swimming toward Florida and we are heading the opposite direction. I have waited until today—your wedding day—to answer your letter.

Listen, I don’t do advice, but I can tell you about someone I know.

She was like you. Young. Smart. Pretty. Her husband swallowed the barrel of his hunting rifle and left her entire world black and blue.

I won’t tell her story because you’ve lived it.

You already know what happened to her. She wasn't the same. She didn’t eat the same, sleep the same, think or talk the same—her posture even changed.

Once upon a time, she stood straight and confident. Afterward, she slumped.

Tragedy will do that to you.

But this

woman has stamina. She’s seven kinds of strong, by God, and sweet. She is made from one-hundred-percent heart-muscle, unsalted butter, and powdered sugar.

I’ve seen her stand in a funeral line, shaking fifteen hundred hands. I’ve watched her work pitiful jobs, just to raise dimes for her children. I’ve heard her cry in the bathroom with the door shut.

She met someone recently. A good someone.

They started doing fun things together. They walked the beach, they went to hear live music. They danced.

This woman hasn’t shaken her tail feathers since the Nixon administration.

Death has a way of making you quit dancing. It makes you hate good and bad things alike. It cheats you. It tries to step on your chest and take your breath. It makes you afraid…

The regular fry-cook is gone. He has evacuated town. She’s here alone until the replacement cook shows.

SEPTEMBER 7th, 9:29 A.M.—Hurricane Irma is close enough to smell. Most of Florida lives within the geographical area meteorologists are labeling the “Run-Like-Holy-Hell Zone.”

I’m eating a late breakfast at Waffle House. I am the only customer here. George Strait sings in the background.

The woman behind the counter is in her late sixties. She is lean, rough features. Her voice is like a pack of Camels.

The regular fry-cook is gone. He has evacuated town. She’s here alone until the replacement cook shows.

She takes my order, then cooks my breakfast herself. She is a go-getter, this woman, she knows how to cook an egg.

I ask if she’s worried about Irma.

“Ain’t worried about nothing,” she says. “Been through too many hurricanes to worry about this little old storm.”

Irma isn’t a “little old” anything.  Irma is wider than the SEC, stronger than forty-mule-team Borax, and heading straight up the pant-leg of Florida.

The woman delivers my plate, refills my coffee. We talk.

Her husband was killed when they were newlyweds, long ago. She raised two children on her own. It

was no cakewalk.

Every summer, she managed to take them to Disney World as kids. She saved her pennies and dimes to do it.

“Family vacations was important to me. Used to stay in an RV park, only we was the ONLY tent, between all them big rigs.”

After raising her kids, she should’ve been cruising Easy Street. But that’s not how it happened. Her daughter got pregnant and returned home with two grandbabies.

She raised them while her daughter attended college.

Today, her daughter is a registered nurse in Birmingham. Her grandkids are in college. Her son lives in Albuquerque. They are successes, and they make her so proud her teeth are showing.

“That’s my daughter,” she says pointing to a cellphone photo. “She's pretty, ain't she?”

I hear melancholy in her voice. I’m not the…

Mom turns to him. She gives him a warm look. It’s the same sweet look mothers have been giving children since the invention of the diaper. 

September 6th, 11:13 A.M.—Hurricane Irma is moving closer. And it looks like the storm is getting angrier every few hours.

Here in the Panhandle you can see people gathered around TV’s and cellphone weather videos everywhere you go.

Walmart is a nuthouse. They are out of bottled water, milk, bleach, toilet paper, bread, and according to one official, they’re running dangerously low on ketchup.

People wander through the store with tight faces. There is a man wearing a homemade T-shirt that reads: “Irma Sucks.”

In the peanut-butter aisle, I see a child who follows his mother’s cart. The woman is stocking her buggy with essentials.

The kid holds a cellphone, volume turned up. I hear the tinny voice of a weather report.

The little boy says, “Mom, are we gonna be okay?”

Mom turns to him. She gives him a warm look. It’s the same sweet look mothers have been giving children since the invention of the diaper.

It’s a look that says: “Everything—no matter how afraid you are—is going to be alright.”

It's the same look my mama gave me when a swarm of red ants crawled up my legs and bit the Holy Spirit out of me. I had an allergic reaction, trouble breathing.

“Mama,” I said. “Will I pull through?”

She gave me that look, and here I am.

I also see an old woman. She is frail, she walks bent over. She’s searching for bottled water on barren shelves.

A female employee notices her. She asks what the woman needs.

“Where am I gonna find water?” the old woman asks. “What am I gonna do?”

The employee gives the elderly woman that look—the same one I was just telling you about.

“Let’s…

The world has gone crazy. It’s mass hysteria. Hurricane Irma is coming, and some people are losing their cotton-picking minds. 

Pensacola, Florida—a long line of vehicles at a gas station. I am waiting behind a woman and her daughter. She holds a baby in her arm.

The gas pump is not accepting her card. She keeps trying. No luck.

There’s a man in a car behind her. A very nice, German car that costs more than a new liver.

He shouts at her. He honks. “C’mon!”

The world has gone crazy. It’s mass hysteria. Hurricane Irma is coming, and some people are losing their cotton-picking minds.

The woman hands her baby to her daughter—who looks like a fifth-grader.

The woman walks inside to see the cashier. She is gone a few moments before returning with her face in her hands. She looks like she’s about to cry.

“My wallet!” she shouts to her daughter. “I don't have it!”

Without skipping a beat, the young girl reaches into her jean pocket, and hands her mother a handful of dollars.

The lady’s dam breaks. If tears were nickels, she'd be a millionaire.

The girl gives the money to her mother with a brave face. And I can’t see

how much she gives, but it’s a wad.

More honking from Mercedes-Man. He slams his hands on his wheel.

The woman fills her car with gas. The daughter rocks the baby in her arms.

When the woman finishes, they crawl into a dilapidated Ford and drive away. Their car makes a grinding noise, like it needs a new axle. And I’m fairly certain she’s leaking oil.

Mercedes pulls in behind. He whips forward and jams his brakes. He leaps out, slams his door, and tries the pump. But something’s wrong.

He cusses, then marches inside.

He returns, accompanied by the attendant. The clerk places a yellow baggy over his gas-pump handle.

Out of service.

Cars are honking at Mister Mercedes. The man pulls into the next pump, behind a van. He waits.

When it’s…

...I got into the habit of visiting nursing homes for stories. I’ve visited multitudes of them. I’ve met some stone-tough people there. I remember one in particular. I’ll call him Tom.

DEAR SEAN:

I’m crying while writing this in my car. My doctor just told me I have a health issue that could kill me, he actually said those words. ...I have kids and a wife, and I'm scared as hell. Tell me a story, man, I need cheering up.

Thanks,
A WORRIED MAN

DEAR WORRIED:

When I finished school, I decided to try my hand at writing professionally. I got laughed out of a newsroom.

An editor told me to “Go find some kick-ass stories, then maybe we’ll talk.”

Of course, I'm not a “kick-ass” type of guy. My expertise is more in the half-assed arena.

Anyway, I got into the habit of visiting nursing homes for stories. I’ve visited multitudes of them. I’ve met some stone-tough people there.

I remember one in particular. I’ll call him Tom.

In his young days, he was a high-school coach in a one-horse town that had a water tower and a party line.

He'd never had a winning football team. In

fact, some seasons he had to shut down the football program—there weren’t enough players.

One summer, doctors diagnosed him with cancer. He got so depressed that he stayed indoors and gave up living. He resigned before school started.

One day, he laid in bed, feeling sorry for himself. He heard heavy footsteps on his porch. All day, the footsteps. One pair after another.

He kept his curtains drawn.

When the footsteps finally quit, he peeked through his window. There were so many bouquets and thank-you cards on his porch that people started leaving flowers on the sidewalk.

On the first day of school, a friend called to tell Tom that thirty-some boys signed up for the football team—more applicants…

“They made the quilt for me,” one woman says. “When my husband was dying, and everyone took turns staying with me in the hospital.”

Somewhere in Alabama—a white clapboard building. The place is a trip backward in time. The steeple was added during the Great War. The cemetery is even older.

It’s a weeknight. Small-town kids play tag on the church lawn.

A mother barks: “Be nice to your sister!”

I meet an old woman who has been the church organist since Davy Crockett sailed the ocean blue.

A black-and-white image of her hangs in the fellowship hall. Think: big hair, petite frame, and one metric ton of eye makeup.

“Wasn’t I pretty?” she asks.

She still is.

Anyway, I have never seen a covered-dish party this size for a church so small. There are more casseroles than there are forks.

One old woman says, “Some of our ladies usually bring two, maybe three dishes. Willie Sue brought the tea.”

Willie Sue.

There are plenty of elderly people here. Several younger ones in their late forties and fifties, too.

One man says, “I came back last year. Used to

work in the big city, for a company that built smartphones. I was miserable. Doctor said my blood pressure was through the roof.”

He quit his job, and he left the tech field. He moved home and started attending potlucks again. They elected him janitor.

Today, he carries the church key ring and takes out the trash.

I meet another man who is missing his right arm below the elbow—a hunting accident. He cooks hamburgers on the grill, using a prosthetic hook.

“When I lost my arm,” he says. “The whole church chipped in and delivered suppers for a year, they never skipped.”

Three hundred and sixty-five foil-covered plates.

The children in the congregation are few. There is only…

Mother Mary also talks about a period in history which is only remembered in black-and-white photos now. A time before her rheumatism slowed her. When she was slender as a bird, with dark hair, and sharp eyes.

The Alabama-Florida State game is on television. My mother-in-law is watching with me. She’s sitting in her recliner, Velcro shoes propped in the air.

She just had surgery, she’s too weak to cheer. She’s been in the hospital for two days. Doctors discharged her only a few hours ago.

When she arrived home, my wife and brother-in-law helped her limp into the house on weak knees. I carried purses and offered verbal assistance.

They ushered Scarlett O'Hara over the brick steps, through the hall, into the living-room—where she sits now.

On the wall behind her are graduation photos of her children—framed in gold.

On her sidetable: a magazine, with her redheaded son-in-law's article in it. She shows this to visitors.

“You can’t write about me tonight,” says my mother-in-law. “I’m not wearing my pearls. You’re only allowed to write about me if I have pearls on.”

My wife disappears, then returns with a strand of pearls. She fastens them around the sophisticated belle's neck.

“There,” my wife says. “Now he

can write about you.”

My mother-in-law knows, of course, I’ll write about her. This is why she starts telling detailed childhood stories during the most pivotal moments of the SEC football game of the century.

She knows I like her stories.

There’s the story, for instance, of when she lost her pet duck. The duck escaped and flew over Brewton, Alabama's downtown during hunting season.

The fellas sitting in front of the hardware store shot the bird dead. The duck made the front page of the paper.

Then there’s the one about her pet baby alligator. She loved her alligator. She dressed it in girly clothes, took it to tea parties, and let it sleep beside her.

One autumn morning,…

The birthday girl is dressed like a princess. She has a diamond tiara, a pink dress with sequins. She has Down syndrome.

I’m in a Mexican restaurant. I’ve been driving. I’m tired. I’m here to enjoy cold beer and something salty.

Earlier, I tried visiting the joint up the road. The place has allegedly good barbecue. I left after three seconds. They had a band that only knew two volume levels: loud, and nuclear holocaust.

So I’m here.

Behind my booth are children. It’s a birthday party. There are at least fifteen. They sit around a long table which is mounding with gifts. They holler and laugh.

A few wear pointy hats. I didn’t know kids wore pointy hats anymore.

My waitress brings my beer, and I overhear all the Top-40 hits of childhood happening behind me.

“Gross, you eat boogers?”

“I know you are, but what am I?”

“My dad could beat up your dad.”

“COOTIES!”

How have we come this far as a civilization, and still not eradicated cooties?

Then, parents hush kids. Children's voices run quiet. A mother walks to the door and looks through the glass.

"Here

she comes,” the woman says to her group. “Get ready.”

There is a pregnant pause. I am holding my beer with both hands, watching the door.

The door opens.

Children scream “Happy Birthday!” loud enough to break stained glass. Then, applause.

The birthday girl is dressed like a princess. She has a diamond tiara, a pink dress with sequins. She has Down syndrome.

Her father helps her to the table, holding her arms. The girl sits and covers her face. She’s blushing.

“YOU GUYS!” she says.

Her smile is bright enough to tear the cotton-picking world in half.

Mexican waiters in colorful sombreros visit her table. They sing. Parents…

Her voice is the Great American South. It’s tiny meeting houses, hardware stores with live-bait wells, fiddles playing on porches, and raw tomatoes with salt.

She’s almost ninety-six. And when she talks, it sounds like lightning bugs, swarming over a mossy pond.

She admits, most days she doesn’t do much talking. She sits beside her window, reading, or sleeping. But she has good eyes, she has her mind, and she still has a voice.

“Started making up songs when I’s a girl,” she says. “They helped me through some very hard times.”

The hardest of times, you might say. She asks me not to dwell on this part of her story—so I won’t. But when she was ten, her father killed her mother, then himself.

Her brother and sister raised her. Her childhood was spent in a plain, plank house beside a creek. She led a lonely life—kids her age rejected her.

Her first made-up song was meant to help her sleep.

“Got so dark in my bedroom,” she says. “Thought I’s seeing ghosts and spirits, it was terrible.”

She sings:

“Don't wanna be afraid,
So I won't be, I won’t be,
Not gonna be afraid, no,

no,
Nobody here but me…”

Her voice is cracked and old. Sweet, but sad.

I wish she'd hold me.

After the War, she fell in love. They settled and had two kids. She helped him forget a battlefield. He helped her forget childhood trauma. He played guitar. She sang.

She made many songs with him. Like the one for her son, when he fell from a tree.

“Oh, John, don’t you frown,
It ain’t right to get so down,
Dosey-doh, and don’t you know,
There’s always someone sadder…”

Her voice is the Great American South. It’s tiny meeting houses, hardware stores with live-bait wells, fiddles playing…