What I remember most is fighting over the last of the homemade egg noodles. Every year. No matter how much Mom rolled out and cut by hand, it was never enough. I’m going to be honest. Despite all the themed pillows, pumpkins, and seasonal letterboards in my house, Thanksgiving has never been one ...
Precious friends, I want to share with you my piece that was recently published by Yahoo Lifestyle and The Mighty. But I also want to include here more personal content than was distributed in these publications. As we approach the four-year anniversary of my diagnosis this month, I am especially aware of the debt I owe each ...
I knew the look on my husband’s face as he started turning his pockets inside out. Thinking about breaking for lunch from the long theme park lines, he made the realization. Our keys were missing. And not just our hotel key. It was an Airbnb key (and a remote gate key) along ...
“This is the day, this is the day, that the Lord has made, that the Lord has made…” My oldest child’s beautiful voice pierced the strained silence on her first day of Kindergarten. Adult tears flooded the front seat of that minivan as an innocent, trusting faith poured out in the back. With ...
Daaad, Daaad, Dad! As my dad pulled up in his truck, I whisper-shouted in my huskiest 14-year-old voice from behind a tree. My VW Rabbit had done its signature move and died in yet another public place as I drove home from high school. I had my reputation to protect, so my plan was ...
I am an ardent fan of trees, especially large, old ones. We searched for almost two years before we found a house with a yard full of mature oaks. My daughter was even married beneath their branches. It was my happy place. But like grown children leaving the nest, they have gradually begun ...
Somehow I always expected an easier trip. Traveling to grandma’s house seemed to take days in our 1977 Pontiac sedan. When I put it in my GPS now, it would only take 3-1/2 hours, tops. But back then it felt more like a covered wagon trek across those parched Kansas grasslands. With my father ...
“You are my hero,” she said. It echoed inside my head for months. I felt the deep inaccuracy in her words from the start. This vibrant woman full of life and grace and love, had no business looking up to me. But her enthusiastic rallying for others is part of her charm and ...
After we remodeled a house, we needed rain for our un-irrigated grass seed to sprout in the summer heat. The exterior door into the new mudroom was installed slightly below ground level. Every time we got a hard rain that summer, the mudroom flooded. And every time my husband and I would be in there ...
“Let go! Let go!” Our young adult friends yelled in unison from the swollen river’s bank, some reaching a panicked tone. The canoe my thrill-seeking new husband and I were floating in had taken a corner too fast, and capsized. He immediately let go, went under, and then popped up on the far ...
