I remember going to see the Grand Ole Opry as a boy. My father drove through the busy city of Nashville. I was five, he was thirty-six.

“Daddy,” I said, “Do you think that there will be anyone famous there?”

“Do I?” he said. “You better know it. There’s always famous people at the Opry, and famous ghosts, too.”

“Ghosts? Really?”

My daddy always was good with a ghost story.

“Why sure,” he said. “The ghost of Hank Williams, for one thing. And Hank Snow, and Lefty Frizzell... There’s always ghosts at the Opry.”

“Are they nice ghosts?”

“Depends.”

“Depends on what?”

“On if you’re a nice little boy or not.”

“What happens if I’m not a nice little boy?”

“A ghost will swoop down from the rafters suck out your soul, and send you to Hell and make you listen to classical music for eternity.”

Daddy’s ghost stories always were a little offbeat.

Then he would laugh. My father had a laugh that sounded like Mister Ed.

My father and I walked into the amphitheater and were greeted by the smell of

hotdogs and popcorn. I had the greatest evening of my life.

Men in ten-gallon hats. Women in rhinestones. Steel guitars, dueling fiddles, the sound of Keith Bilbrey's silky announcing voice.

We were suspended from the real world for a while. It was a star-studded dream, wrapped in a beehive hairdo, with a guitar strapped to its chest. Onstage we saw Jerry Clower, telling jokes.

My father laughed, slapping his armrest. And there was that Mister Ed laugh again. His odd laugh was funnier than any joke that ever inspired it.

But the height of our evening was not the music, nor the laughs, nor the sparkling rhinestones. The apex of this memory happened after the show.

We made our way to the lobby. There was a horde of people waiting in line. We couldn’t see what they…

I am on the beach alone. I am watching the sun lift itself high above the horizon, driving the dark away. The blue-purple morning becomes a sudden electric orange.

I remove my phone and start texting someone.

Long ago, my mother used to force me to watch the sunrise whenever her fretful little boy was feeling anxious. Because a sunup is one of those things that beats away anxiety, even if only for a few merciful minutes. All mothers know this.

I needed all the help I could get in the anxiety department. I was a worrying child. I was one of those annoying kids who always needed his Mama. And Mama was always there to ease his worries, touch his hair, or place her mouth upon his little belly and blow flatulence noises.

When I was 9 years old my mother gave me a dog named Goldie. She selected this particular high-spirited animal because our family was going through hard times and I developed a stomach ulcer, and she knew

her fearful son needed a friend.

I would never again sleep in a bed that was not covered in hair.

Then there was the time I was taking a math class in college, and not doing so hot. Mama helped me there, too. I was an adult, and I was borderline failing the course. All I did was worry about passing that dumb class.

My mother was the one who finally told me, “Whenever you start to worry about college, Sean, think about it like this: you’re paying for your own college. That makes you the professor’s employer.”

Mama knew exactly what to say to ease my anxiety. I looked at my teacher in a new light after that. And it worked. I quit worrying about everything. That semester, after not worrying one iota about math class, do you know what happened? That’s right. I got an F.

But…

Morning on an American interstate. A caravan of large bucket trucks travels southward. There must be a hundred of them. Maybe more. These are utility workers.

Hurricane Ida plowed into Louisiana like a Peterbilt semi yesterday. These trucks are heading to ground zero to join the 25,000 other utility workers who are already in the Bayou State restoring power.

The trucks’ running lights are on. Their hydraulic lift buckets wobble from highway speed.

The men and women behind the wheels are preparing for weeks of sleepless nights, mechanical failures, possible accidents, wet weather, convenience-store suppers, cheap hotels, and video calls home—provided there is cell service.

A little boy in the backseat of a passing minivan with Florida tags waves at one of the truck drivers. The lineman waves back.

The boy’s mother cranes forward. She mouths the words “Thank you” in hopes that the utility worker can read her lips.

He can. He replies with a thumbs up.

And the convoy of trucks never stops coming. One by one they come. And

one by one they should be thanked.

I live on the Gulf Coast. Hurricanes are part of our life. When Opal hit, for instance, it crippled us. And yet, amazingly, it only took 24 hours for hordes of electrical workers to arrive in our town and restore our power so we could all get back to watching daytime television.

The workers came from far-off places like Maryland, Texas, Ohio, or Pennsylvania.

My aunt was so grateful to the linemen working on her street that she brought them sandwiches each morning. Other neighborhood ladies made cookies and deviled eggs. Elderly Miss Elaine made her infamous Green Jello Salad of Death. I would have warned the lineworkers not to eat the stuff, but it was too late.

And I’ll never forget when Hurricane Ivan smashed into our area a decade later. I was a newlywed, living in a one-bedroom apartment.…

To the nearly one million people in Louisiana without power tonight. To the countless souls in Mississippi, whose lives are going underwater. To all on the Gulf Coast, submerged in rainfall and storm surge from Hurricane Ida.

To families trapped in homes, who will be surviving on prayers, spit baths, snack crackers, and adrenaline fumes for the next several days.

To young parents who will be spending tonight reassuring anxious children that there is nothing to fear, even though they doubt their own words.

To anyone living in a flood zone.

To all whose entire lives were contained in a mobile home.

To the young man, Eric, who emailed me from Lafourche Parish, Louisiana, who is still trying to reach his sister, Sharon, but hasn’t been able to contact her.

To the hordes of families in New Orleans shotgun homes, who never wanted to imagine that something like this might happen a second time.

To anyone living in the middle of a tornado-affected region within the Southeast, who is sheltering in a walk-in

closet or a pantry right now, scrolling their phone to keep from going into shock.

And especially to the children. To all children of the Bayou State, the Magnolia State, the Camellia State, and the Sunshine State, who have been awake tonight, huddled in bathtubs alongside their sweaty siblings while 150-mph winds threatened to rip their world apart.

To the scared toddlers who are reading Golden Books, playing board games, or watching iPad movies to keep from freaking out.

To the souls in Grand Isle, Louisiana, who need rescue and don’t have phones. To people in Jefferson Parish, whose cars are flooded, overturned, crushed, demolished, or lie beneath 100-year-old pines.

To the elderly, the shut-ins, and those with mobility problems, who have been watching the Weather Channel for 24 hours with clammy hands until, boom, their world suddenly went black.

To my friend, Anderson, who emailed from…

I’ll call the Waffle House waitress Thelma for the purposes of this column. Thelma is mid-thirties, pretty, wearing a camouflage ball cap, and the no-nonsense attitude all hall-of-fame waitresses wear. And she calls everyone sweetie. I love it when they do that.

I sat in a booth in an average Florida Panhandle Waffle House on a weekend. The joint was empty. The globe lights hung over the faux-wood-grain tables the same way they did during my boyhood, back when long lines of customers would stretch out the door on Saturday mornings.

Tonight, however, the place was empty.

Thelma handed me a menu. I was struck by the reduced selections on the new menu. Waffle House used to have a lengthy menu that read like the abridged version of “War and Peace.” But now the lineup is vastly limited.

I asked Thelma why.

“Well,” she explained. “We’re having food supply issues. These are hard times, sweetie.”

And I could tell this was true because half the restaurant was roped off. Some of the barstools had plastic bags over the backs to either

encourage social distancing or to make things easier on the store’s two-person skeleton crew.

There were only three cars in the parking lot, counting mine.

“Why is it so dead?” I asked.

She shrugged. “Probably because we ain’t got many employees no more.”

“Why not?”

Shrug. “Hard times.”

Even so, amidst hard times this Waffle House hasn’t lost its charm. The place is still Americana on a stick. Ice cold AC, jukebox in the corner playing Tammy and George, chocolate milk thick enough to pass for Georgia mud.

Thelma brought my coffee.

“Things have been rough,” she went on. “Used to, we had plenty’a staff, but now, well… Now it’s mostly just me and Ben working.”

She nodded toward Ben. Ben was tall with mahogany skin and shoulders like a defensive lineman.

I asked how long he’s been working…

A nice car stalls in traffic. Horns honk. People shout. Traffic backs up for miles. In the front seat is an old woman.

Four Mexican men leap out of a nearby dilapidated minivan. They push the woman’s broken down vehicle from a busy intersection.

In the front seat is Jocelyn. A 73-year-old lady with cotton hair. When she is out of harm’s way, one of the men says something in broken English:

“Chew need a ride, ma’am? We can take you wherever chew wanna go.”

They drive her home, across town. She offers to pay for their gas. They decline. So she offers to feed them. They accept. They become lifelong friends. They visit often. They help repair her house. They mow her lawn. Compléteme gratis. She always reimburses them with food.

Years later, Jocelyn dies. At her funeral, Jocelyn’s daughter sees a group of unfamiliar Mexican men standing in the visitation line. She’s never met them. They tell her the story I just told you.

Next, meet Chase. He is middle-aged and clumsy. He has the

idea to repair his own roof one day. Bad idea. He climbs on the house while his wife is away. He loses his footing. He trips. The shrubs break his fall—and his leg.

A neighbor’s 14-year-old son sees the accident. The boy calls 911, then performs first-aid. The kid even rides to the hospital inside the ambulance with him. When Chase awakens, there is a boy sitting at his bedside, mumbling a prayer. Chase is confused.

“Who are you?”

“I called your wife,” says the tearful kid. “I found her number in your phone.”

That might not sound like a classic tale of heroism to you. But that boy is an adult now and he is an EMT. And also, he is one of Chase’s best friends.

There’s a girl. I’ll call her Karen. As a child, she was abused by her father.…

My wife and I are sitting outside and looking at the bay water outside my late mother-in-law’s house. And we’re crying.

The world just hasn’t felt right lately. It feels off-kilter. It feels dimmer somehow. Ever since my mother-in-law, Mother Mary, passed away, everything has gone out of whack.

My wife is all over the map emotionally. One moment she’s laughing at a funny memory, the next moment, it’s full-on waterworks. And I’m usually crying right beside her.

I guess it’s hitting us now. I suppose we haven’t had time to let the grief fully settle on our shoulders. There wasn’t any time for grief until now.

When someone dies you are immediately distracted by decisions that need to be made. The decisions come at you from all angles like gnats. You talk about funerals, wakes, dinners, preachers, you look at photo books, plan outfits, you buy new dress shoes because yours look ratty.

You’re on autopilot. The mud and sediment in the proverbial glass of water haven’t settled yet.

Well, this week, the mud is

settling, and I’m remembering too much at once. Such as when I first got married.

The most joyous period of my youth was spent on this pier, looking at this pretty bay with my newlywed wife and her mother. In some ways, my life was just beginning.

My wife and I spent the first week of our marriage in the upstairs bedroom of this house, overlooking this bay. And years later, when my mother-in-law became ill, we moved into that same bedroom to care for her. That’s when our world became all about Mary. And it was like that for a long time.

It was my wife who ran the caregiver show. She wrote the schedules, did the hiring and firing, cut the checks, and covered the weekend shifts. We took Mary to doctor appointments. We tucked her into bed. For cripes sake, I…

Currently, as I write this, a dog is sleeping on my feet. His name is Otis Campbell. He is black and white, 90 pounds, a Capricorn, and likes long walks on the beach.

Ever since my wife’s mother passed away last week, Otis has refused to leave my side.

Yes, I know he’s just an animal, and I know his brain is only about the size of a tangerine, but I’m telling you, this dog knows stuff.

I wish you could see him right now. He is half awake, half asleep, sort of standing watch over me. I’ve always wondered how dogs can remain deathly still without falling asleep.

It reminds me of a guy my father once knew. The man could sit on the front porch without moving a muscle for days. The only way you knew he was alive was by his toothpick—it moved occasionally.

I can tell that Otis senses a deep sadness in our house ever since the funeral. He might not know what’s going on exactly, but like I said,

dogs just know.

Otis has witnessed every random emotional breakdown in our kitchen. He’s seen my wife weep until she has a headache. Otis can sense whenever my wife is about to completely lose it.

Before the sobbing even happens, he runs toward her and careens into her body like a 90-pound cannonball of hair and spit, willing her not to cry.

It’s hard to believe it’s been nearly three years since Otis came to us from an adoption center. We found him when a local pet shelter had a meet-and-greet wherein they crammed dozens of crazed dogs into a giant cellblock, then threw a party.

The place was a circus. You couldn’t hear what any of the volunteers were saying because the collective noise was loud enough to make a grown man cry. The smell was even more impressive.

The different kennels had fanciful…

If I were walking on a beach and I found a shiny magic lamp with a genie inside, do you know what I’d wish for?

I would wish for (1) unlimited wishes, and (2) an Atlanta Braves bedspread. But my third and most important wish would be for you.

I would wish for the words within this small, insignificant column, drifting out into Internet Land, to help you feel unafraid.

I know you’re afraid right now. I can almost see you sitting there, staring at this paragraph on your phone screen, subconsciously worrying deeply about something. Something important.

You’ve been anxious for days, months, years now. I don’t know what you’re afraid of exactly, or which variety of fear keeps you up at night. But it hardly matters because fear is fear. And I happen to know fear.

I am a third-degree blackbelt in being anxious. I have my PhD in freaking out. I also know firsthand that fear does serious damage no matter where it comes from.

Fear keeps you from sleeping. Fear

prevents you from living. Fear screws up your digestion and alters your brain waves. Fear will make it impossible to watch professional sports.

So even though I’m just some random guy you’ve never met, a guy with an imaginary genie, I know stuff. And I know that although these are just simple words on a screen, words can be more than mere words sometimes.

So for the sake of this column, let’s pretend that the sentences you’re reading are made of fairy dust. Imagine that, by some miracle, my third-grade-level syntax contains real magic.

If this were the case, do you know what I’d do with these quasi magical sentences? I would transform them into a giant word-quilt, and wrap them around you. Then I would give you the biggest, warmest, longest, hardest embrace, and hold you for a long time. I would squeeze you so…