Tricia, an old friend of mine, said something that started me thinking. Her parents had been married for 40 years when her mother died. When her father fell in love again and remarried a couple of years later, Tricia was happy for him, but felt uneasy. “I’ve always believed in heaven,” she said. “It meant that my father and mother would be united there for … Continue reading Who is the Real You?
It may have been all the fairy tales I’d read as a kid, or maybe it’s just the nature of being a child, but everything new seemed magical to me when I was growing up. I was raised in a suburban development on Long Island that was built on former potato fields. There were still farms on Hempstead Turnpike, the main road a couple of blocks away, and … Continue reading The Magic of Childhood
When I was a girl of 9 or 10, I was the oldest of 3 sisters (eventually there would be 4 of us.) At this time, a girl I’d never met became an unexpected visitor at my house. This was rather mysterious as she’d sprung up out of nowhere. She seemed younger than I, but was quite large — tall and ungainly. My parents said she was … Continue reading Family Secrets – A Popular Pastime
Around the time one of my sons was 5 years old, I remember driving home from work feeling stressed. When I pulled into my driveway, I’d sit in the car for a full minute and breathe deeply to compose myself before entering the house. I didn’t do this to relieve the stress from my job but to prepare myself for the daily minor catastrophe that awaited me at … Continue reading Contagious Moods
