The dog no one wanted…

“Too big.”“Too loud.”“Too strong.”“Too aggressive.”“Too naughty.”“She runs away too often.”How many times had she been brought back to the shelter?Sarah didn’t know any of that.All she knew was this:For a creature who wanted nothing more than to run wild & free,She was dying a little, every day, in this tiny cage, at the Norfolk Animal

Seeking Common Ground

 I know that it can’t be easy to be my friend, either in real life, or on Facebook. The past five years of deep political turmoil, societal inequity, and racial reckoning have been traumatic for me and I have a hard time keeping my mouth shut and my Facebook profile focused on pictures of my

Above all else: protect the children

From the time we were expecting our first child, at least until the last one left for college, I saw myself as having ONE JOB ABOVE ALL OTHERS: protecting my children and keeping them safe. Nothing else really mattered. Our first pregnancy ended in miscarriage and so we were frantic to protect the next child.

Out of Many, One.

To My Conservative Friends & Family, If you’re seeing this, it’s because you haven’t unfriended or unfollowed me on Facebook, and for that, I’m grateful.  Throughout this period in our history (one of many, actually) of deep and bitter political division, I have steadfastly refused to unfriend anyone based on our political differences.  A couple

All the Days of My Life

This week brought my 60th birthday and the 27th anniversary of the day that Olga and I said “I do.” These two milestones have me reflecting on the memorable days of my life: both good and bad.  There have certainly been terrible days: Our miscarriage on 1/4/93, losing Dad on 12/30/02, losing my job on

A long day’s journey into night…

When we were growing up, my mom used to recite for us, by memory, the tale of the “Little Small Red Hen” which tells the harrowing story of the hen’s encounter with a villainous wolf, and ends with: But the Hen lived happily, just as before,In her dear little house by the wood,Walking picketty-pecketty,Working as

“What else should I have done?”

Yesterday was my rebirthday. I spent last November 20th having open-heart surgery to repair a badly malfunctioning mitral valve. My cardiac rehab specialist told me in February how lucky I’d been.  “The first symptom for a case as bad as yours is often collapse and many don’t live long enough to make it to the

The things we brought from Indiana

In the summer of 1968, a big orange Allied moving truck picked up our belongings from our campus housing at Ball State, stopped in Fort Wayne for the household items we had in storage in our house there and made the trip across Ohio to New Wilmington, Pennsylvania, where we would grow up and my

What you have done to the least of these…

Eighteen years ago this fall, I accompanied a group of college students on a retreat over at a beautiful camp in Angola, NY. The setting was on the bluffs high above the Lake Erie shoreline.  We had a delightful time there except for one terrifying incident that is still burnished into my memory two decades

A walk to remember…

I love visiting the grand old city of New York: the sights, the sounds, the smells, the energy that permeates the place; it is a paradise for a people watcher such as I. In particular I enjoy watching people walking dogs and pushing strollers, I suppose because those are two of my all-time favorite activities.