Memorial Day is almost here, and with it the start of summer!  That’s what I, and I believe most people think of when they enjoy the holiday on the 4th Monday of May.  But roll back almost 160 years and we can uncover the origins of the day we observe as Memorial Day. When the […]

Am I mad? You bet I am! She wasn’t supposed to die. We pledged our love forever.   We’d only just begun To fulfill some of the dreams we had. But we were cheated out of our future together, And all my dreams are in past tense now.   Our forever lasted thirty-six years, Which […]

  Anna Quindlen published Write For Your Life last year.  The short book is a plea for us to write.  To write our stories, write our heritage down, write with pen and paper or on a computer, just to write.  She makes an excellent case for why we should do this.  Mostly to be remembered.  […]

  A fabulous year for me. At 20, I married my love, Bill.  I paid little attention to the economy, as long as we had money left on Friday for some fun! In 1978 we built our first home.  As we secured our first ever loan, we came to the shocking understanding of interest rates […]

  When we are hurting, deep in our grief, helping others may not seem possible.  And like everything else in the grieving process, volunteering will work for some and not others. That said, it’s been studied and shown that helping others and volunteering for a cause may help ease the grieving process. UnitedHealth Group did […]

  I thought all the “firsts” were over after the first year.  I was dead wrong.  I didn’t count on the holidays being harder this year than the first time around. When Covid was in full force, I was isolated and alone.  No one was going to other people’s houses, and I stayed home by […]

  All of us want to be accepted by our peers. We seek out groups we want to be part of And hope to become absorbed into their consortium As one of them.   But there is one club that none of us wants to join. It’s the organization of grievers Who are mourning the […]

  There are so many emotions stirring when a loved one dies: Overwhelming sadness, loneliness, anxiety, anger, confusion, worry, And, of course, grief. But what about gratitude?   Is it okay to admit gratitude when your role of caretaker ends, Or your partner doesn’t have to suffer any more indignities Or continue to experience the […]

Leaving a legacy means different things to each of us.  Last month I discussed the many forms of legacy and how honoring our loved ones can shape our own legacy.  But during the last two years as the world has experienced Covid 19, many of us have had our world ripped apart. Aston Verdery, a […]

Leaving a legacy means different things to each of us. To some, a legacy is leaving money or property to their heirs. To others, it is about the lasting impact they leave on the world when they leave it.  This could be a body of work for a writer or actor, a farmer knowing he’s […]