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No One Knows

​ This is probably going to get some negative comments, so let me start here: I do not know all the details of the Lindsay Clancy story, and I do not want this thread to become a debate about whether particular decisions were right or wrong. None of us were there. And I’m guessing almost no one reading this has ever killed their own child, which pretty much eliminates us as experts on what happens inside the mind of someone who does. I have shared pieces of this story before. Technically, it isn’t entirely my story, but there is no one living today who would be harmed by my telling it. When I was 10 days old, I died. My parents had separated after only two years of marriage, and my mother and I were staying with her father. His girlfriend was visiting that day. The story I was always told was that she walked past my crib and saw a pillow covering my face. She pulled it off and began CPR. An ambulance came. I was pronounced dead. Thankfully, somebody didn’t give up. And 68 years la...
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Let the Move Begin

​ Yesterday we started packing the house I’ve lived in for more than 30 years. Joe and I built this house when our oldest daughter was just 3 months old. We moved in three months later. We brought our second daughter home here. When we married, his four amazing children became my children too, and this house became home to five kids over the years. Now, except for our youngest, they’ve all grown up and built lives of their own. These walls have seen birthday parties, Christmas mornings, Thanksgiving dinners, Friday night pool parties, band kids taking over the house, homework at the kitchen table, laughter that echoed from room to room, and probably more pizza boxes than I could ever count. They’ve also seen the hard things. This is where we fought Joe’s cancer for eight long years. It’s where we celebrated every good scan and cried through every bad one. It’s where I came home after his funeral. Even today, there’s a  bathtub where I completely broke down.  Years later, t...
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Whatever Happened to Calling People Names

I have a serious question about something I honestly thought we all learned somewhere between finger painting and nap time. I completely understand that people think differently, vote differently, eat differently, dress differently, worship differently, and see the world through different experiences. Honestly, that’s one of the things I enjoy most about people. If every one of us agreed on everything, life would be incredibly dull. What I don’t understand is the need to call each other names. Stupid. Idiot. Moron. Ignorant. Fill in the blank with just about any insult you can think of. Really? We survived potty training. We learned not to eat the paste. We figured out how to stand in line without shoving the kid in front of us. Somewhere along the way we even mastered “please” and “thank you.” But apparently, “Don’t call people names” didn’t stick. I’ll admit it. Every now and then I’ll read a comment online and actually say out loud, “Who raised you?” Then I catch myself...
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America 250

​ Fifty years ago, I was a high school senior getting ready to graduate during America’s Bicentennial. At 18, life felt like it was just getting started. I had a great boyfriend, talking about marriage. He was joining the Navy, and I was filling out college applications. The future felt wide open, and I couldn’t wait to see where it would take us. That doesn’t mean 1976 was perfect. It definitely wasn’t. America was still trying to recover from the Vietnam War. People were shaken by Watergate and the resignation of Richard Nixon. Inflation was high, unemployment worried a lot of families, the energy crisis had disrupted daily life, and the Cold War was always there in the background. But here’s what I remember most. In my little corner of the world, life still felt hopeful. The Bicentennial wasn’t just something on the calendar—it felt like a big deal. Small-town parades filled the streets. Mailboxes were painted with patriotic scenes. Flags were everywhere. Store windows were deco...
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Tragedy averted

​ I’ve been thinking about the tragic story of the woman in Florida who lost her life after entering a pond and being attacked by an alligator. I’ve been to Florida more times than I can count. I’ve traveled all over the state, visited Gatorland, and even stopped at one of those small alligator farms near Lake Okeechobee where they raise gators for visitors. If you’ve ever been to one, you know exactly what I mean when I say they’re loud… and they have a smell all their own. But here’s what stands out to me. For more than twenty years, every single trip to Florida came with the same warnings. “Stay away from the water.” “Don’t walk your dog near the edge.” “Never assume there isn’t an alligator.” The signs are everywhere. The locals repeat it over and over. It almost becomes background noise because you hear it so often. This woman’s death is heartbreaking, and my heart truly goes out to her family. I don’t write this to blame someone who can no longer tell her side of the stor...
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Aging - is it graceful?

​  Because life is too short to not appreciate a good self depreciating story….. The Great Calf Catastrophe of 2026 There comes a point in life when you realize you’re no longer competing against other people. You’re competing against gravity, furniture, and apparently… turning sideways. My latest adventure began with the incredibly dangerous act of standing and rotating my body. That’s it. No mountain climbing. No marathon. No CrossFit. Just a simple pivot that my calf apparently interpreted as an act of war. A sudden, sharp pain shot through my leg and immediately introduced me to the floor. It was less of a graceful descent and more of an unplanned meeting with the carpet. Being a person with an impressive fear of doctors, I naturally did what any reasonable person would do—I followed up with TeleMed. Why seek immediate medical attention when you can spend quality time analyzing every possible diagnosis from the comfort of your couch? Over the next 24 hours, I became an amateur ...
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Time to Stop Searching

  I have been blessed with a lot of friends over the almost 70 years of my life. Looking back, I find myself asking one question over and over. Why do I keep finding the same kind of friendship? I seem to be drawn to people who need someone to listen. They want to tell me every detail of the latest family drama, the controlling parent, the difficult coworker, the unfair situation… and I listen. I really listen. Twenty minutes, thirty minutes—it doesn’t matter. If they need someone, I’m there. But when I try to share something from my own life, it feels like I get about ten seconds before I can almost see the interest disappear. If I share a fear, a hurt, a worry, or just something that’s weighing on me, it somehow gets brushed aside. Sometimes I’m even told that what I’m experiencing isn’t the same, as though my feelings need to qualify before they deserve to be heard. It leaves me wondering… how do I keep attracting this dynamic? Is it something in me? Do I simply give off the...
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