“What’s new?”  my friend asked.  “Nothing much” I answered.  And then I realized how very true that was for me.  After several years of major NEW (new home, new husband, new office, new family members), suddenly everything is notably not new. (more…)

My dear friend’s mother died recently.  Helen was 88 years old and had been sick with kidney disease for 3 years.  Her decline was not quick or pretty.  And yet, her dying had a certain beauty to it . . . a peaceful acceptance . . . a surrendered willingness. (more…)

The first tree I fell in love with was a southern magnolia.  That tree, as I recall, was absolutely huge - with low lying branches where a little girl could sit, sheltered from the Texas heat.  In the spring it produced giant, fragrant blossoms - larger than my hands - that gave off the most heavenly scent imaginable.  My mother used to put the blooms in bowls of water around the house so that the rooms would fill with the smell of magnolia. (more…)

For 3 decades, he had two waist-length signature braids and then . . . snip . . . they were gone.  It has been heralded as “the haircut heard around the world”.  Why?  Who?  Willie Nelson, of course.  I grew up in Texas where he was an icon.  For all of us, those braids were his identity. (more…)

A sea of mortarboard caps . . . seniors with tear-soaked tissues . . . parents dabbing at moist eyes.  Pomp.  Circumstance.  Ah . . . graduation.When I graduated from high school, I was overcome by the end of life as I knew it.  It was not only the end of school but also the end of my residence in Texas and the end of living with my parents.  When I graduated from college, I was likewise cognizant of the ‘death’ of everything familiar. (more…)