It was the most intimidating question I’ve ever been asked. My husband and I were visiting a new church we’d read about. On our first Sunday the pastor, Gordon Cosby, announced that he’d be teaching a class on “Christian Growth,” and interested folks should sign up. We did. On the first day of class, as…
Getting ready to go to work one morning at the court where I was a judge, I was finishing my makeup. When I closed my right eye to put eyeliner on it, my face disappeared from the mirror. I opened my right eye and my face came back. It took a few seconds for the…
Nature doesn’t always wait for us to hand over our toys. Sometimes, she takes them away without our permission. When I was 16, I memorized a poem that struck me even then with its poignant truth about the cycle of life. In his poem “Nature,” Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882) compares nature to a loving mother…
When my girls were tiny Jerry and I cherished every new miracle. The first baby tooth! Eating finger food! Crawling, walking brought applause and cheers. I loved watching their little minds work as they began to talk and figure out new experiences. (At first sight of Georgia clay, two-year-old Dede sang out, “Look, Mommy! Sunburned…
When someone wants to end a relationship, she or he may say, “I just need some space.” But when I told my kids I needed a little space from their father, they understood I wasn’t trying to break up. Jerry was the love of my life, but at 85 his health was failing, his memory…
From the corner of my eye I watch Jerry shuffle out of the Carpenter’s Lodge into the chill November darkness. From a pile of firewood near the kitchen door he carefully selects four or five logs. Some are split. Some are short but whole. His rough workman’s hands choose those short enough to fit into…
“What can we do to help?” friends asked me as my husband lay dying and soon after he passed. At first I didn’t know how to answer. I’m still feeling my way through early stage-grief from the inside out. At first I didn’t know what I needed, but others sometimes recognized a need and…
My mediation partner Sig Cohen and I are in the final stretch of a book tentatively called How Do You Want to be Remembered? In some respects this is a “how-to” book complete with its share of lists like, “Ten rules for …“ But I wanted it to be more than practical advice; I wanted…