In January, I donated blood. It was a huge hassle. Last week, I scheduled today’s donation: not with the same chaotic outfit from a couple of months but rather at my local hospital. I’ve donated there before; it’s fairly seamless and they have been consistently pleasant. For this donation, I won’t be going alone. Rob has agreed […]

Read more "Let it Bleed"

Three years ago, I traveled to Florida to be with my mother because she was having “a procedure.” The oncologists and surgeons can dress it up in euphemistic language all they want. Their linguistic hair-splitting didn’t change the fact that my then sixty-five-year-old only living parent was having cancerous cells cut out of her left […]

Read more "What It Means to Say Good-Bye"

I am not at home. Yesterday, it was from my laptop–set out on my mother’s dining room table in mid-state Florida–where I learned about a death of a 47-year-old husband and father. It has been from that same perch where I have been observing my small town’s response, exclusively on Facebook. While deeply felt emotions […]

Read more "The Community Standard of Grief"

My dad died seventeen years ago. I was twenty-seven. Since his death, I have gotten married, earned a law degree, birthed four children, and written over a million words. When I hear people express sadness over the death of someone in their eighties or nineties, I know their pain is real, yet I also know […]

Read more "Death is Relative"

(If you are arriving to this post without the benefit of knowing the backstory, I invite you to read what started it all and then find out what happened next before reading this post.) Rob arrived to meet the principal before I did. He was just about to the front door when I caught up with him. I was […]

Read more "A Prescription for Children"

Rob and I were greeted with a genuine smile by a woman we had never before met and invited to come into her classroom, the same place where my 11 year old had recently been learning all about the “order of operations.” As we only had fifteen minutes, I jumped right in stating my concern […]

Read more "The Protection of Children"

Last night, my 11-year-old son handed me a typed note with a line for my signature. It read, in so many words, that he was sorry, what he did was not the right choice, and that he could be counted on to do differently going forward. It was addressed to a teacher with whom I […]

Read more "The Punishment of Children"

Arguments have been made that literary agents and publishers prefer to represent and distribute work done by men over that done of women. While there is no scientific studies I can point to, there is certainly enough anecdotal evidence to lead a female writer to wonder whether the lack of interest in her work is […]

Read more "Nom de Plume"

I read a book yesterday. An entire book–all 286 pages. I got it the other day from the library upon a recommendation from a trusted friend. The story held my attention and made me think about some things I’d not previously considered: the local devastation after a nuclear power plant melts down and teen homelessness. […]

Read more "Little Help: The Last Book You Read?"

The other day a friend and I had a conversation where each of us shared details of our private lives. Both of us disclosed intimate facts about ourselves. At one point, I recognized that this was the first time I’d said many of these thoughts aloud. My friend echoed this statement. Sometimes when a person […]

Read more "Likened to a Vault"