“For ALL Women and Girls: Rights. Equality. Empowerment.”
This year’s theme calls for action that can unlock equal rights, power and opportunities for all and a feminist future where no one is left behind.
—United Nations
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Like many twenty-eight-year-olds I wasn’t interested in finding a personal physician because I hadn’t been really sick after surviving the usual childhood illnesses during the 1950s and 60s. Unlike most young adults in the 1970s, I lived in a city that was a thousand miles from my roots and I needed to see a doctor. A friend at my new job recommended Dr. J. Frank Martin, Sr.; I liked him immediately, but I loved his wife who was the center of warmth for their family practice which has been my medical home for fifty years. Dr. J. Frank Martin, Jr. continued the tradition of his parents following his father’s retirement.
This past week Sarah Kay Cox Martin died in her home in Hopkins, South Carolina, at the age of 93. I will always remember her kindness, her smile, her sensitivity to a young woman from Texas who found a family practice where family was more than a word. So many memories…
five-year-old Ella, three-year-old Molly, and Naynay at Krispy KremeStore
Nana and Ella love Krispy Kreme donuts
Molly doesn’t like donuts (according to her)
Hmm. Maybe Molly needs to reconsider her position on donuts.
I’m trying to figure out how to eat the icing first
is there anything more delicious than a donut?
Yes! It’s a donut with M&M candy in the icing!
Such an adventure with our two granddaughters who have grown up with Krispy Kreme donuts but always in a drive-thru setting – never actually going inside a store where the donuts are made. Heavenly aromas as we opened the door to the store and feasts for the eyes that opened wide to see the dozens of varieties in spotless display cases as hundreds of donuts moved through an assembly line in full view behind the cases. The girls were mesmerized and a bit overwhelmed by the choices when we limited them to two each but thrilled to sit at a little table with their milk to experiment with unusual tastes and colors. Finally, a race to the restroom to wash hands and faces when we had to take them to their parents.
As Nana leaned into the middle row of the grannymobile to buckle Ella in her car seat when we were leaving the Krispy Kreme store, Ella asked out of the blue: Nana, did you marry Naynay? Nana said yes, I did. I was sitting next to Ella who then turned to me and asked the question Naynay, did you marry Nana? I answered yes, I married Nana.
But you’re both girls, Ella continued, and I nodded yes to her. But that’s okay, I said. Without skipping a beat as the wheels turned in her five-year-old brain she said, Owen had two moms. Owen was a little boy in her first daycare for two years. He did, indeed, have two moms we met when we picked Ella up in the afternoons.
Yes, I said. We are two of your grandmothers like Owen’s two mothers.
And that was that. No more questions. No long discussions – they would come later, but for now everything was fine in her mind.
Three years ago today, February 24, 2022, Russia without provocation invaded Ukraine. I know it – you know it. On March 16, 2022, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy addressed a joint session of the United States Congress to ask for America’s help, and I published this pieceon that day.
In listening to an emotional virtual appeal by Ukraine’s President Zelenskyy to the Congress of the United States this morning, I felt the despair of this leader who had watched his beautiful country together with many numbers of its men, women and children obliterated by an evil neighbor for reasons known only to that neighboring country’s president and his supporters.
If President Zelenskyy could sing, and I don’t know whether he can, he could have closed with some of the words and music of “I Look to You,” singing along with the American gospel group Selah from their album Hopeofthe Broken World:
“As I lay me down, heaven hear me now. Winter storms have come and darkened my sun. After all that I’ve been through, who on earth can I turn to? I look to you, I look to you. After all my strength is gone, in you I can be strong. I look to you. And when melodies are gone, in you I hear a song. I look to you.
I don’t know if I’m gonna make it. Nothing to do but lift my head. My levees are broken, my walls have come crumbling down on me. The rain is falling, defeat is calling, I need you to set me free. Take me far away from the battle – I need you to shine on me.”
The people of Ukraine are looking to us and our Allies around the globe for help to stop not only the physical crumbling walls but also the assault on our vision of freedom and our democratic way of life. Make no mistake, as President Zelenskyy has consistently reminded us, the destruction of Ukraine is but the beginning of a world war against securing the blessings of individual liberty for all people and for their posterity.
I have a dream, Zelenskyy said to the Congress today, but I also have a need to reclaim the skies over Ukraine, to stop the senseless bombing of my citizens and our homes. The Ukrainian President is looking to us.
Yes. We see you, we hear you, we feel your pain. We will respond with gratitude for your fight against a common enemy to serve a greater good.
We Americans suffer from long term memory loss – the lessons we painfully absorbed about world wars, global conflicts, political corruption, identifying our enemies, supporting our friends – all 20th. century instructional tools we have conveniently forgotten in this 21st. century have now come home to roost in a new administration that seeks to say No to the needs of our Allies and Yes to the demands of our enemies. Shame on our leaders, shame on us for electing them.
Last night Pretty and I were watching a new comedy on Netflix when she suddenly sat up and said, tomorrow is the 9th. of February, our 24th. anniversary. This was huge because for twenty-three years Pretty had problems remembering the date. Bravo!
I usually began the reminder process in January every year with a conversation that followed along these lines. Pretty, you know we have an anniversary coming up in February. Oh yes, she would say. What day is it then? I asked. Time passed as the wheels turned. I could see them turning. Is it the 12th.? she finally guessed. No, I replied with outright disgust. It’s the 9th. Pretty said oh she knew it was either the 9th. or the 12th. but thought she always got it wrong so she went with the one she didn’t really think was right. Didn’t I say I saw the wheels turning? For twenty-three anniversaries, Pretty has never remembered the right date. I always remember because I have it written on my calendar, and I don’t consider that cheating. I consider it brilliant. (Was that a calendar I saw in Pretty’s lap last night? Hmm.)
Return with me to those thrilling days of yesteryear to meet Pretty who magically changed from being a close friend and confidante (before the spontaneous trip to Cancun pictured above in February, 2001) to a woman who was hotter than the salsa we had with dinner at La Destileria the first night we were there. And trust me, that salsa was hot.
Pretty was “out” in a conservative state in a tumultuous era. She was ahead of her time with her Bluestocking Bookstore in the Vista in Columbia before the Vista became cool. Her business closed after three years, but her contribution to the LGBTQ community was recognized and appreciated. She served on the original board of directors for the SC Gay and Lesbian Business Guild formed in 1993 and was the second president of that organization. Her passion for equality was the catalyst for an activist’s life, a passion she and I shared as friends over the decade that was the 1990s.
At the turn of the century, change was in the air. It was like everyone suddenly realized time was passing faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive and if Superman and Wonder Woman were unlikely to intervene in the chaos and/or uninspiring sameness of our lives, we needed to make radical changes ourselves.
Both Pretty and I were in long term lesbian relationships that experienced seismic shifts as the first year of the new century came to a close. Our partners began looking for love in other places. Pretty had the additional drama associated with making a home for a fifteen year old son who she adored, an athletically gifted teenager who was the quarterback of his high school football team and the starting pitcher for their baseball team. She mixed her real estate appointments in her new career as a realtor for The Hubbard Group with her tennis league schedules and her son’s games.
The trip to Cancun was the launching pad for the most adventurous ride of my life. I had no way of knowing then that the gorgeous intelligent intellectually inquisitive woman with the wonderful sense of humor who grew up in New Prospect, South Carolina would marry the woman from deep in the heart of Richards, Texas and that we would be together for the next twenty-four years sharing a life unimaginable to me as a child. Yet, here we are – still laughing at each other’s jokes, still loving, still standing. And yes, still eating Mexican food as often as our older appetites allow; but now with the additional delight of sharing fajitas and quesadillas with our growing family that makes our love richer, more joyful, more playful.
How do I love thee, Pretty? Let me count the ways, and let me begin with the spicy salsa you have always brought to our family life together for two decades plus now. On that first trip to Cancun, we walked along the beach in the moonlight and I said I would give anything to celebrate our twenty-fifth wedding anniversary together in 2026. Unbelievable. Inconceivable. That seemed like such a long, long time away then, especially since I was fifty-five years old and you were fourteen years younger. We’re almost there, but the years have passed faster than a speeding bullet, our love more powerful than a locomotive.
Happy 24th. Anniversary, Pretty. Let the good times roll.
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granddaughters Ella and Molly at Mexican restaurant
From her first birthday two years ago to the one we celebrate today, this little girl has been the icing on our cake whenever we see her. For Pretty and me, she is the gift that keeps on giving.
Molly’s first birthday cake (2023)
(maternal grandmother Gigi laughs at Molly’s first cake experience)
when you’re three years old, you can use your hands
big sister Ella and Mama Caroline help with gifts as Daddy keeps watch
Molly consoles her best friend who wondered why none of the gifts were hers
what could possibly be better for a party than the 2024 bounce house?
(two-year-old Molly and four-year-old Ella in their bare feet had fun!)
a petting zoo in the backyard!
the goat was in charge of gymnastics
Molly, Molly, how much do Nana and Naynay love thee? Let me count the ways – too many to count. You are priceless.
I'll Call It Like I See It 
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