Before I learned to read, the pages of my days flipped by like so many bedtime stories, familiar and listened to, half asleep in my cozy...

How thin the line between the silent remains of our friend and the line of living friends who file past. Some kneel to pray or say hello,...

I am sitting in a cathedral surrounded by the faithful, the christened, the regular church goers. We are here to commend the soul of our...

If I was granted the grace to choose where and when to die, I would choose a day like this winter's day, in a gentle snowstorm. As long...

...no. No, I won’t return your smile, because it might lead to a date, which might lead to a church, and into a vow that would bind me in...

I’m trying desperately to pack everything I’ll need for a long one-way journey. The to-do list is epic, not sure what will get done....

Where does love live? tradition    history     poetry   would say that love lives in the heart. Yet… how can such a tiny organ hold all...

The work of grief is never  done.   It sets up shop inside of us, sends roots into our hearts and the marrow of our bones, becomes part...

it was our mantra… the way we made it through the days when it was just you and me alone in the house with the death that stalked us at...

Shortly before his death at 92 years we talked, my dad and I, of many things. He had regrets, yes, a few, but the biggest was a surprise...

An interesting concept fell out of a novel I was reading. “Pain is just information.”   Yes, I thought, that is true. Step on a shard of...

I found a voice I did not know I had, by living through a sadness I did not think I could survive, then meeting friends I could not have...

I carry with me coins of silence. I pick them up throughout the day, finding them in the lost moments between appointments and tasks of...

I lie on the sofa and listen to the rain pour down thinking I don’t want to leave my house      my cat      my mind   I can hear the slow...

I lie on the sofa and listen to the rain pour down thinking I don’t want to leave my house      my cat      my mind   I can hear the slow...

Who will be the last shape I see as my vision of this world dims?   Will it be a familiar and much loved partner? A stranger with the...

Building piece by piece... it’s a challenge because there isn’t any picture on the front of this box.   Sorting by color, shape,...

Dear ____________,   I am the other side of your equation. You worry for those you will leave behind. But me? I am the one who has been...

When I die, I hope for a short time of perfect clarity, to finally get answers to questions both big and small.   What is the universe...

What I was has made me what I is -- has set me here on the brink of what might be. Stepping forward while looking back -- teetering --...