Our Spin On Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is only a week away, and I have a lot to be grateful for. Perhaps first and foremost is my good fortune in having an exceptional family, one that was originally torn apart when my husband left me, but which has been reunited over the years that followed our split. I am very lucky…

Read More

Steps To Fighting The Darkness

My last newsletter reminded all of you that September is National Suicide Prevention month. This week I’d like to offer some strategies I used to fight off the darkness when I was a suicide risk. And I’ll also give you a few that worked when my Mom was the one at risk, and I needed…

Read More

Dad, I’m Singing Your Song

It’s Father’s Day this coming Sunday, and considering that I spent Mother’s Day writing about Mom, it seems only fair that I give Daddy equal attention. Now that he is gone, closing his eyes for that final time on May 11, 2012, I have all sorts of memories engraved in my mind and on my…

Read More

Gone Snorkeling…ALOHA!

Okay, I have a confession to make: I really loathe buying a bathing suit. Consider first the ghastly green lighting in the department stores that illuminates every dimple of cellulite. And consider second the mirror that adds a good ten pounds to my sixty-two year old body, upon which gravity has definitely done its work.…

Read More

Letting The Love In

Mother’s Day is only four days away now. This particular holiday always makes me a little bit sad. I remember my mother and wonder how we would have celebrated it this coming Sunday, when she would have been eighty-eight and I am just rounding the corner into sixty-three. My mother never saw her twenty-first Mother’s…

Read More

Tea For Two

Recently, I was asked to do a Q & A for another writer’s blog, and one of the questions was very thought-provoking. “If there was one person, dead or alive, that you could spend an afternoon with, who would it be and why?” I considered my answer with care. All of my initial responses seemed…

Read More

Searching for Jiminy Cricket

Every time I see an ASPCA ad on television for an abused dog or cat about to be put to sleep, I start to cry. Sometimes I get upset enough that I shut the TV off. I don’t want to look at their faces–even though I know I should face their reality. I suppose I…

Read More

A Dog Is A Dog Is A Dog

A second chance is one of the most miraculous and elusive gifts we can give. But why is it so hard to forgive–not only the ways in which we let others down, but also the ways in which we disappoint ourselves? Over the past two years, there has been an aspect of my life in…

Read More

Dodging Curveballs

Sometimes life sends us curveballs. Just when we are least expecting it, a new situation arises, be it good or bad, and we are left scrambling. Not so long ago, I was talking with a friend whose older sister had died suddenly quite some time ago, and who was having difficulty coming to terms with…

Read More

HERE COMES THE SUN

I have been away from home for two weeks, making a personal pilgrimage abroad, to Israel, for the wedding of my younger son. Our entire trip was exceptional, though I was more than glad to come home, put my feet up and pull my dogs onto my lap in a blanket of black and white.…

Read More