Recently, I put together a book for my pregnant daughter. I reached out to a lot of women, more than 90 of whom were gracious enough to share their parenting wisdom with me and with Natalie.  I was pretty specific in my reasons for wanting to write this book. I lost my Mom at a… Continue reading Love them.

Thursday evenings were saved for Meme and Pepe, our French-Canadian bonus grandparents, Meme, petite and hard around the edges, with boney-fingered cheek pinches and endless smiles for the children I only now realize filled a giant void in her life, a void left by the very early death of my older brothers’ father. Our Pepe… Continue reading A bag full of stones

When everything and everyone else in the system fails, it’s the educators who pick up the pieces. Every. Single. Time. I grew up in an extended family of educators, public school teachers from 2nd through high school. My niece teaches middle school. My brother and his wife teach at university. My cousins teach elementary school… Continue reading It’s the educators

Perhaps because he was a sickly child, Norman spent his adult years dedicated not only to intellectual pursuits, but also committed to exercise and fitness. And he encouraged these things in his children. In me and in my siblings. He taught us to swim in the ice-cold waters of Livingston Swimming Pool, a community pool… Continue reading A Swell Guy

They might be ticked that I referred to them as old women, but salty, of that bit they would approve. Last weekend, my family attended a much-delayed celebration of life for Steve’s Aunt Joan, his mother’s (Mary’s) sister. Joan was very much a bonus grandmother to my kids, present at most every holiday and a… Continue reading Pedicures, beach sand, and salty old women