Before the Chapter Ends

I Have Always Been a Storyteller

I have wanted to be a writer for as long as I can remember.

I have always been a storyteller. Like most children, I thought my childhood was completely normal until I started spending time with friends and realized that maybe it wasn’t quite as normal as I had believed.

For years, I thought surely no one else could relate to the stories I had to tell. Then came the World Wide Web, followed many years later by TikTok, and suddenly I realized I had found my people. Apparently, quite a few of us were raised in families where love was loud, arguments were louder, and nothing stayed private for very long.

Writing has always been a kind of therapy for me. Unfortunately, that therapy once got me into a world of trouble when my mama read it.

Middle school is hard enough without your mother discovering your unfiltered thoughts. Those are the years when everyone turns into a monster, including you. Then, a few years later, you slowly begin recognizing yourself again and hope everyone has forgotten what you wrote in the meantime.

From the 53 Bar to the Church Pew

In 2019, I found myself sitting on a church pew every Sunday with my husband, our children, my mama, and my aunts. It warmed my heart to have all of them there together.

Now, I am not going to tell too many stories about the years before that because only about twelve years earlier, some of us were spending our weekends together in bars.

Is it strange to say that I enjoyed both seasons?

I know the Lord probably was not talking about Sunday morning at midnight, singing “Family Tradition” while closing down the 53 Bar, when He said that where two or three are gathered, He would be there among them.

But I suppose He knew where to find us.

Still, I loved having my family gathered together in those church pews even more. Thankful for the God we serve.

The Notebook That Started It All

Sometime during 2019, I sat in my living room for hours listening to my mama and my aunts bicker, correct, interrupt, and belittle one another in the special way only sisters can get away with.

So, naturally, I took out a notebook.

I wrote down everything I could remember, like I was cramming for the most important final exam of my life. Every story led to another story. Every correction started an argument. Every argument uncovered some new piece of family history.

That was the beginning of this book.

But the story really reaches much farther back.

Three Sisters and a Pistol

In the fall of 2005, I introduced my husband, Joe, to my side of the family. I was already pregnant with our first child, so I suppose it was past time.

That day, every family skeleton seemed to come tumbling out of the closet. My sweet Nonnie sat there smiling and shrugging as the stories were told. She did make sure to correct any details that were not entirely accurate, or at least not accurate according to her version.

At one point, this precious woman leaned over toward Joe and reminded all of us that she had found the Lord and was now a changed woman.

Amen, Nonnie!

Now it is the fall of 2026, and this season feels much different.

For several past Sundays, my mama and my aunts are not sitting in church with us. Their familiar places were empty, and I felt their absence.

My sweet Nonnie has vascular Alzheimer’s and has reached the point where she no longer recognizes my mama. My mama was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s this past year and is no longer able to drive. My middle aunt’s health is failing too, although she has always been a little like a cat with nine lives. Every time we think she has used the last one, she somehow finds another.

There are so many emotions wrapped up in these three women.

They were three strong sisters who moved to Perry with their single mama. They grew up through hard times, but they were deeply loved, and they have always loved one another fiercely.

They can fuss, fight, aggravate, criticize, and talk over each other better than anyone I know. But nobody else had better mess with one of them, because another might come busting through the door slinging a pistol.

We will circle back to that story later.

Underneath all that noise, and the occasional threat of armed sisterly intervention, is a bond that has lasted a lifetime. It's beautiful thing to have witness and as an only child, I thought, "wow, how lucky it would be to be in their sisterhood."

Before the Chapters End

I do not know how many more years we will have with this trio on this side of heaven. I am going to go ahead and ask you to pray that each of them will always have comfort. If something happens to one of them, I worry that the other two will simply miss her too much.

That is why I am returning to the book I started in 2019.

It will be a comedy-drama about three sisters, inspired by the stories they have shared and the lives they have lived. Some parts will make you laugh. Some will make you shake your head. Some may break your heart.

I wish I could promise that none of it is true.

Unfortunately, I cannot.

I cannot wait to share these women and their stories with you. I also know I cannot finish the book until all of their chapters have been lived, so I cannot say how long it will take.

Then again, I started it in 2019, and it is already 2026. Clearly, we are not working under a strict deadline.

But I am making an oath to work on the chapters I can while I still can. I will write down the stories, the disagreements, the laughter, the love, and all the little details I never want our family to forget.

In the meantime, I will share a few of the funny moments, the tender memories, and the headaches that come with loving three strong-willed sisters.

This book is for my mama, my aunts, and the women who came before them. Boy, do I LOVE these women.

It is for their children and grandchildren.

And it is for anyone who has ever looked at their family and thought, “Surely we cannot be the only ones.”

Trust me.

You are among your people here.

-Writer Block Unlock, LaDonna

Aunt Jan, Me, Nonnie, and Mama after church service 2016