There is nothing like a new year to get us thinking about our health.
Recently, I was speaking to my grandmother, Katherine McGee Cox and lovingly “Mama Cox,” about her experience living through the height of the polio epidemic in North Carolina in the summer of 1944. A lifelong storyteller, educator, matriarch of six and maker of the best chicken ‘n dumplings — all while being married to my grandfather “Paps,” a row crop farmer — she shared with me how confining it felt to be kept from her cousins, especially. Her family has always been close both in nature and proximity, most often due to her steadfast, unconditional love.
Despite being kept in isolation in an assisted living facility for 14 months of the COVID-19 pandemic, leaving only to go to the hospital when she had contracted the Coronavirus and was battling pneumonia, Mama Cox said that the isolation of her youth was far worse.
I am not sure if it is her seasoned life that has given her perspective to acknowledge that the health crisis of her early years was worse, or if other conditions of science, information and experience have shaped her conclusion.
Pandemics aside, I hope we all regularly find reasons to not take good health for granted.
Mama Cox also told me to write about our experience during this pandemic to share with our children and generations to follow.
It got me thinking: Our written story could be the greatest gift we could leave for our families and communities.
Every year, our team at Macon Magazine aims to share the stories of how we are living well in Central Georgia in the December/January edition.
We know that with every hopeful story, there are many more stories of strife. We spotlight some here, and we always ask that you share with us the stories we need to know about so we can do our part to provide a platform and call to action.
This edition is packed with the people, the organizations and even the dogs doing the work to take care of our own.
Read on reader, with gratitude for the things we know are good and true. I include health at the top of my gratitude list, and I hope this edition will inspire your own good health and ways to help others access better health in the new year.
I’ll see you on the other side, in 2022. Cheers to that.

With gratitude,

susannah@maconmagazine.com
@susannahcmaddux

A NEW BABY WILL ALSO DO THE TRICK OF MAKING YOU MORE AWARE OF GOOD HEALTH.

WE WELCOMED WILLIAM JENKINS MADDUX ON NOV. 3. WE WILL CALL HIM “JENKINS,” AS HE IS NAMED AFTER HIS MATERNAL GREAT GRANDFATHER, WILLIAM ARCHIBALD JENKINS.

MY CUP OVERFLOWS FOR OUR FAMILY, FRIENDS, DOCTORS, NURSES AND ALL THE STAFF AT ATRIUM HEALTH NAVICENT, DOULA, TEACHERS, HELPERS, SOUL STIRRERS, FOOD FIXERS AND HAND HOLDERS WHO SUSTAIN US.

THANK YOU FOR WELCOMING JENKINS INTO OUR BELOVED COMMUNITY. I WASN’T PREPARED FOR A THIRD CHILD. NO ONE IS EVER PREPARED TO BRING A NEW BABY INTO OUR RESTLESS WORLD.

I WILL DO EVERYTHING I CAN TO STRENGTHEN HIS FOUNDATION, ENSURING THAT HE IS A HELPFUL, GOOD DOER.

He’s got work to do to stand up to that coif.