We’ve entered the final quarter of 2023, and what a year it has been.

I brought in the year celebrating twenty-six years of marriage in Chicago, where outdoor signs in January read, “Caution! Falling Ice!” This is not something we Southerners ever see. After this much-needed break, I returned to Louisiana to resume care of my mother who had her hip replaced in November 2022, and my husband Averri returned to Louisiana to take care of the kids. What we expected to be six weeks of recovery for my mom, turned into months of care, including 18 days in the hospital followed by 31 days in a skilled nursing facility. By February of 2023, Averri and I decided something had to be done. In the first place, we can’t live apart. We’ve been together since we were only 17, and Mama couldn’t live alone. We renovated our home and moved Mama in. (Now, my mother might not agree that she has moved in. She would say she’s just visiting for a very long time. So, let’s keep this moving in thing our little secret.)

In May, our 20-year-old son got married and had a beautiful baby girl. Our 18-year-old graduated from high school, and our 21-year-old got engaged. So, that makes two married sons who aren’t returning home.

I’ve been saying two sons won’t return (not to live anyway), but I think our youngest son is counting on it being three. In other 2023 transitions, he started college and secured his own apartment. Well, he secured it as most 18-year-olds do, with a lot of parental assistance and a promise to do well. And I am pretty sure he has it in his head that this is it. He thinks he has launched. (I won’t tell him it’s not that easy.)

So, my mother transitioned in, and our sons transitioned out, and our daughter slipped into her senior year of high school. Now, she’s completing a practicum in veterinary medicine, working at Pet Suites, and free-ranging her mini-lop bunnies. The free-ranging thing is quite the transition, and I don’t care for it much, but my daughter insists it is best for the bunnies’ care.

This is what we get, by the way, for raising strong-willed, independent, future-minded children who completely believe all things are possible. They’ve been taught that: “For nothing will be impossible with God” (Luke 1:37). I pray they hold on to that forever.

There have been so many more transitions in 2023. It seems I’ve lived a thousand lives in this one year. I’ll share just two more before I go.

I started off the year teaching writing as an adjunct in the Department of Narrative Arts at Houston Christian University while serving Houston’s Writers in the Schools as a Writer-in-Residence in a local elementary school. By March, I transitioned into a full-time writing position at the University of Houston-Downtown and overlapped the three jobs through May. Looking back, I don’t know how I did it, except that “nothing is impossible with God.” I pray I hold on to that forever.

Just when I thought life would not produce another major transition—at least not in 2023—I won the Lee Smith Novel Prize. And voila! Years of work paid off in a sudden burst of recognition. (I have not begun to tell you how much rejection came first, but I will, one day.)

I don’t know everything that 2024 will bring, but I know it will bring Behind the Waterline into the world, and I can’t wait to share it with you. Writing it healed so much heartache. That’s a story, too. Just hang with me a while, and if I forget to tell you, reach out to ask.

I’ve got other treats and news coming your way, too. Subscribe to my blog for updates. You’ll be the first to know when I share resources for teachers, the final cover, the novel’s release date, book launch and tour info, and more.

And I might even throw in grandbaby photos and wedding pics for fun.

Until next time,

Kionna Walker LeMalle
Writer.Teacher.Friend.