My dad died two and a half weeks ago. Dad had Parkinson’s for twenty plus years and finally succumbed to this wretched disease via a choking incident that left him with aspirated pneumonia. I could talk at length about the week that dad lay dying in the hospital and all the feelings that evoked in …
These past four weeks, I have not cried. Haven’t shed a single tear. Not when presented with missed opportunities, lost experiences (and financial reimbursements), and the monotonous daily grind. Not when discovering that the worst was yet to come. Not when reading heart-breaking accounts and watching soul-ripping moments. Not even when I could not see …
This time of the year, with winter’s melt and spring’s thaw, one has to watch where one steps. The ground is soft, mushy and squalid. Although tempting to wear that bright, new pair of sneakers you ordered off the clearance rack on The Shoe Company website (that cute and airy, light-blue pair of Adidas that …
“Everyone has inside them a piece of good news. The good news is you don’t know how great you can be! How much you can love! What you can accomplish! And what your potential is.” – Anne Frank Can you imagine writing this piece of literary goodness, this lovely gem of hopeful kindness, while …
When I was nine years old, the bottom fell out of our family’s world with one, horrific phone call. The call that changed everything—it came on a December day, just before Christmas. I remember very little about the date—the common, everyday moments leading up to the call. But I will forever have imprinted in my …
Fighting the dark. Filling the empty spaces. Finding light. First, fighting the dark. I felt a cloud of darkness pushing in around me. Felt it for days. Heavy, ominous: it started with the light-hearted feeling of having done something helpful and hopeful, but left me feeling pinched for air, as if being suddenly choked by …
I look out the double windows this evening at sundown, while wiping down the kitchen counters from a late supper. Noticing Husband out by the road, talking to an unrecognizable couple and their dog, I am drawn to the over-sized glass on our entryway door. Pausing for a moment, I take stock. Who is this? …
Over the past few months, a number of challenges have arisen in both my and my family’s lives. Sickness, stress, extenuating challenges, new opportunities with monumental struggles attached, time constraints, over-commitments, financial concerns, extra coursework…you name it, Just, life, man. A few weeks ago, in anticipation of March Break coming, I said to Husband that …
Walking down the hallway, I turn quickly into the school office, with the plan to retrieve a document that moments earlier I had sent to the photocopier from my computer. As I make the sharp turn to the right, scooting in around the corner, I become witness to a small huddle formed around a very …
One of my first memories is of a bedroom I shared with my sister, next in line. There are five of us in the ‘siblinghood’ now, but at the time, there was only Kris and I. This bedroom, located in a small, sloped-roof home in Westfield, Maine, is forever fixed in my memory as one …
Resilient. A word fraught with deep meaning and much complexity. For me, it signifies that one is faced with challenge and is able to withstand. It is about weathering the storm. Withstanding the pressure. Rising after the fall. It is how I feel most of the time, if I were being truthful. I often think …
Had not driven very far this evening in the Dodge, me being the sole occupant of the vehicle (so Sirius Satellite Channel 113 was my friend and faithful time-passer)…when CNN alerted me to the fact that a 100-year-old gentleman and his beloved, Sara, at 98, had been burned to death in California’s wildfires. Oh my …
