Writing

“Children in the sixties did not live at home with their parents after high school; we left our city and suburban wombs for jobs, college, or the military. My last year of high school [in 1967] had much in common with my first year of life. I found my hands, feet, and voice as a […]

The sun sank low behind the layers of thick green leaves on the large, numerous trees that line every street in Webster [Groves]. The streetlights flickered on, making small circular halos of light around the [African American] cleaning ladies]. Mother looked her most movie star beautiful standing in her whiteness, laughing with them in the

Mary Ida Kelly, my mother, was born at home in 1920, and Henry Richmond Miller, my father, was born at home in 1916. They grew up, met, and married within twelve shady blocks of one another in Webster Groves, Missouri. In 1925 a five-year-old blonde, bushy-haired Mary Ida stood on Lockwood Avenue and firmly protected

The time our Miller family spent in our Woodlawn house was too brief, though we were there for ten years. The five of us had enormous, even embarrassing, love for one another. We had our own language adapted from listening to my father’s way of talking about life. A person didn’t fall if he lost