“To love someone long-term is to attend a thousand funerals of the people they used to be. The people they’re too exhausted to be any longer. The people they don’t recognize inside themselves anymore. The people they grew out of, the people they never ended up growing into. We so badly want the people we […]

Compassion involves “feeling for another” and is a precursor to empathy, the “feeling as another” capacity (as opposed to sympathy, the “feeling towards another”). The desire to alleviate another’s suffering. Compassion involves allowing ourselves to be moved by suffering and experiencing the motivation to help alleviate and prevent it. An act of compassion is defined by […]

My Mother loved Easter. I believe in her mind Easter was really the beginning of spring and being a gardener and “green thumb” this meant she was now free to start her growing season. For those of you that knew my Mother, you can attest to the fact that she could take a seemingly dead […]

Sister Mary, as I recall, was from Baltimore, and when I left the school where I did my student teaching, she gave me a “gift” she made. It was a seashell, lacquered to protect it from the elements. The shell was milky white, flecks of orange and yellow, small enough to carry in any pocket. […]

I woke up this morning thinking about “Dove” after another restless night of PTSD compounded by an aching hip. That’s odd since I hadn’t thought of him in years; perhaps, it was the death of “Dr. T” that brought him to mind. “Dove” was the guy in front of me in line when I went […]

Maybe, the Old Man thought it was a function of age. After all, Meat Loaf was 74; he trails by three. If there is one thing he still recalls was the era of the 1970s. 1977 was a pivotal year for him. He was married at 19 to get away from home; he was eight […]

Zuzu Bailey: “Look, Daddy. Teacher says, every time a bell rings, an angel gets his wings.” George Bailey: “That’s right, that’s right. Attaboy, Clarence.” It’s a Wonderful Life (1945) Every man and woman needs to know they have made a difference in life and that their lives have impacted their community, family, and friends. George […]

The 70-year-old Francis Romero was in a coma in the hospital. His dog was allowed to stay with him, did not break away day and night. After a month Francis woke up from the coma with the words: “Where is the white angel who constantly whispered that everything would be all right?” Courtesy of Appalachian […]