The University of South Carolina Gamecock flag flew atop the South Carolina State Capitol building Monday following the victory of the Gamecock women’s basketball team over UConn Sunday night in the NCAA Division I championship game in Minneapolis, Minnesota – the end of the 2021-22 season that saw Coach Dawn Staley’s team begin as the Number 1 team in the nation and remain there for the duration. Truly a magical season for the Gamecock Nation which includes Pretty, me, our 2.5 year old granddaughter Ella and 12,300 of our closest friends for every home game.
Even as we celebrate, though, we remain constantly mindful of the crimes against humanity in Ukraine. Those images yesterday from a suburb outside Kyiv are seared into our consciousness with the force of a blunt instrument attacking our innate sensibilities.
As my friend Ellen Hawley wrote recently, “…grief is a funny thing and will pour itself into any container it finds.” In this upside down world, my words have always been my container of choice. I weep with the people of Ukraine today and ask for accountability for their losing everything.
Sheila Morris is a personal historian, essayist with humorist tendencies, lesbian activist, truth seeker and speaker in the tradition of other female Texas storytellers including her paternal grandmother.
In December, 2017, the University of South Carolina Press published her collection of first-person accounts of a few of the people primarily responsible for the development of LGBTQ organizations in South Carolina. Southern Perspectives on the Queer Movement: Committed to Home will resonate with everyone interested in LGBTQ history in the South during the tumultuous times from the AIDS pandemic to marriage equality.
She has published five nonfiction books including two memoirs, an essay compilation and two collections of her favorite blogs from I'll Call It Like I See It. Her first book, Deep in the Heart: A Memoir of Love and Longing received a Golden Crown Literary Society Award in 2008. Her writings have been included in various anthologies - most recently the 2017 Saints and Sinners Literary Magazine. Her latest book, Four Ticket Ride, was released in January, 2019.
She is a displaced Texan living in South Carolina with her wife Teresa Williams and their dogs Spike, Charly and Carl. She is also Naynay to her two granddaughters Ella and Molly James who light up her life for real. Born in rural Grimes County, Texas in 1946 her Texas roots still run wide and deep.
Congrats on the BIG WIN!!!! Woot!!!
I hear you about Ukraine. It’s so heart-breaking to me. And it’s hard to halve our hearts all day every day–one side for Ukraine and one side for us and if we have an excitement or joy it’s just that much more of a strain pulling against the other side!
You have to look for a silver lining at times like this and your Gamecocks are surely providing it. Our lack of comprehension of what is going on in Ukraine is a given. Why? must be the cry of everyone. What can we do? is what we’re all trying our hardest with.
I'll Call It Like I See It 
Congrats on the BIG WIN!!!! Woot!!!
I hear you about Ukraine. It’s so heart-breaking to me. And it’s hard to halve our hearts all day every day–one side for Ukraine and one side for us and if we have an excitement or joy it’s just that much more of a strain pulling against the other side!
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That’s exactly how I feel.
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It’s so hard.
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YAY! So proud of the SC Gamecocks women’s basketball team. Congratulations and well-deserved!
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Thanks on behalf of my pretend BFF Dawn Staley and her glorious Gamecocks!
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You have to look for a silver lining at times like this and your Gamecocks are surely providing it. Our lack of comprehension of what is going on in Ukraine is a given. Why? must be the cry of everyone. What can we do? is what we’re all trying our hardest with.
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You do your part! Animal Couriers saves lives – literally and tangentially (is that a word?)
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