Yeppers, I’ve made another year on the green side. But I have just got to tell you that 2020 has been a tough cookie.

(BTW, make mine chocolate chip.)

But you know that and as well I think the year 2020 will go down in history, I’m certain, as The Year of the Enema, and who likes that! I mean isn’t an enema the most disgusting thing ever.

That’s all I will say about that because my mind has created too many disturbing images which are too profound to go any further.

Remembering back, in 2018 I whipped Lyme disease, shingles and the realization that I am not indispensable. Yes, I have been put to the side more than once but that didn’t keep me from yelping. Some say out-of-sight-out-of-mind but I say out-of-sound-out-of-mind. It works, usually.

Oh, and the year 2008 was when my storytelling career really took off and ran smoothly until (you got it) the year 2020, when it came to a resounding COVID halt in March. Like everything else in the gig world, storytelling became a needless thing.

But I still have hope and yes, I continue to yelp my stories at every opportunity. COVID will leave us one day and I will have increased my storytelling catalog with narratives about the virus of 2020 – good stuff. Yep, those stories about when we can all sit on the front porch and tell our COVID stuff, calmly – about where we where and how we survived.

But today, on this day of days, I, as a somewhat unusual Scorpio, will recount a few of my close calls about happenings which could have removed me from the green side. The first that comes to mind is a trip aboard the Threefoot Building elevator.

You see on that day I wasn’t even aware of the Art Deco style of Meridian’s only skyscraper, nor did I particularly take note how very tall the place was.

My main concern was riding the overwhelmingly claustrophobic elevator.

Once to Dr Bennett’s floor, I could open my eyes and breathe again. But on this day, when I was eight years old, my mother took me to the doctor when I complained of a stomachache. I remember the nurse wearing a starched white cap and long white uniform whispering to my mother. I heard the word “surgery.”

Surgery was a big word, even to a little girl. The worried look in my mother’s eyes said it all. At home later that afternoon I wondered, with little girl thoughts, if I would die. Maybe the thought scared the pain right out of my stomach, but it stopped and surgery was cancelled.

My next close call was the birth of my first child. I thought for sure I was a goner but the Lord pulled me through. And I must add that Dr. William R. Moore was a miracle worker delivering my big, big baby and I will always be thankful.

During the years I have survived two bouts of cancer, an emergency appendectomy and 20 years employment for General Motors. Yes, I have them all listed in the same category. I consider all three life-threatening.

But, I’m a tough ole gal.

So tomorrow I begin a new chapter about how I-am-still-on-the-green-side. I will and I shall enjoy the close calls and hopefully continue to twist them into great stories or at least interesting ones.

Life is but one giant story of where we come from, our life experiences along the way, and how we will, until the end, continue to travel a pathway of unknowns. We (I) must keep the faith and live day by day and never forget that God is in control.

Dear friends, remember to make each day an adventure and always look for the story.

Anne B McKee is a Mississippi historian, writer and storyteller. She is listed on the Mississippi Humanities Speakers Bureau and Mississippi Arts Commission’s Performing Artist and Teaching Artist Rosters. See her web site: www.annemckeestoryteller.com