Be a Lighthouse Like Patti
Grief has struck again. I just lost my closest friend in Iowa, Patti Durflinger, to cancer. I was by no means Patti’s only close friend, she was a good and true friend to countless others. She was also a wife, a mother, a grandmother, a sister, and a daughter. She was a lighthouse, living her […]
Need Hope? Jane Goodall Will Give You Some
This post originally aired as a commentary on Tri States Public Radio. To listen, go here. Author E.B. White once said, “I get up every morning determined to both change the world and have one hell of a good time. Sometimes this makes planning my day difficult.” For me, planning my day is never the […]
Ode to the Farm Pond
It’s my baptismal font, my hole in the ground that gets me a few feet closer to the earth’s core. It’s in these waters, the color of meat broth, where I immerse myself to calm my anxieties, soothe my aches—of the heart and otherwise—and to make me feel closer to nature, which to me is […]
Sleep Well, Don
This is not how I thought it would end. I thought I would get to talk to you again, to say goodbye to you. You called on Saturday morning but I was on the other line. I texted that I would call you right back, but I didn’t call until early evening. You didn’t answer. […]
Farewell, Our Fearless Little Warrior
Quality of life. Quality of life. Quality of life. This is your new mantra. Quality of life is what you have to determine when your pet gets old or sick, or both. How do you define quality of life, and how do you measure it? And when it’s an animal—a pet who is considered a […]
Luke Perry, I Knew You When
Former “90210” Publicist Remembers the TV Star Luke Perry, aka Dylan McKay, in 1990 When I heard Luke Perry had had a stroke, I expected him to live. That’s because a friend of mine recently had a stroke, his second one, at age 56 and he is recovering. My friend, like Luke, is fit and […]
For the Love — and Grief — of Goats
Mr. Friendly, Mamacita & Chaps asking, “Yo! Where’s our breakfast?” Three weeks ago, on a Sunday morning, I went out to the barn, as I do every morning, to feed the goats. The three of them—Mamacita, Mr. Friendly and Chaps—are normally waiting at the gate, having already been staring at the house with anticipation upon […]
The World Needs More People Like Ann
My friend Ann is dying. She had breast cancer about 10 years ago but it came back. In her spine. Containable but not curable, the drugs held it back for about a year or two. I hadn’t talked to her for a while and last fall I had a very strong sense that I needed […]
“There is ALWAYS Hope, Bea.”
There is ALWAYS hope, Bea. He wrote this—with the word always in all caps—above a newspaper article he had circled in black ink. He left the paper on the kitchen table knowing I would be down for my morning coffee well after he had left the house to feed hay to his cows, check on […]
Tom Howard’s Last Piece of Pie
My dad and me. Photo taken on Valentine’s Day, February 14, 2017 Two months ago I lost the person I loved most in the world. I lost my dad. He died on March 9, 2017 at 6:30 AM, of metastasized melanoma. The spot on his head first appeared in 2015, a raised and rough growth, […]