They come to the site broken by life, hearts crushed by emotional pain.  They have lost siblings, spouses, children, parents, best friends and lovers.  They come seeking support, assurance that they are not alone in their unbearable grief. (more…)

They handed her to me, still covered in the fluids of birth.  She might have been an angel sent directly from heaven.  10 fingers.  10 toes.  Two tiny, little ears.  She was perfect in every way.

And somehow, eighteen years later, she’s all grown up.  The time passed at once quickly and slowly:  lazy days  . . . lightning years.  In a singularly long blink of an eye, her childhood is over and now, at least in the eyes of the law, she’s an adult. (more…)

Here we are on the cusp of another year – time for my annual contemplative “Hope and Cope Report.”  Rather than making a stale New Year’s resolution, this is my tradition of intentional reflection.With 4 simple columns marked “Knowns”, “Unknowns”, “Hopes”, and “Surprises,” I fill in the blanks of the past year and create a new sheet with my best predictions for the coming year. (more…)

My creative energies have been directed toward a lecture that I’m giving this week in South Carolina.  So I’m leaving you with one of my first blogs, but one that many of my readers have found touching . . . 

Harold is waiting to die.  There were six of us at his bedside in the county nursing home, leaning toward him singing softly, “Amazing grace . . . how sweet the sound . . . “  Tears in his eyes, he shook each of our hands saying, “Thank you, you don’t know how much that meant to me.”  Little did he know how much it had meant to us . . . ..how much he meant to me. (more…)

Uncertainty is in the air in my house.  Out of our five children, four of them will be attending new schools next year.  The amazing thing is that we have no idea what schools.  What college, what high schools, what elementary school?  We’ve pretty much got the educational span covered. (more…)