Two grown men perform kung fu kicks in my kitchen as I stand at the stove in my Christmas apron sautéing tilapia, kale and red onion for their lunch. My sons are home for the holidays. With one child on the east coast and one on the west, this time of year is golden for me as both return to home to the heartland where they grew up in the city in the middle of the prairie. They leave their lives in New York and San Francisco to make simple Midwestern memories with family and friends. It has been a
December 2015
We set off on what I declared to be a great family adventure. We were going to romantically tromp through a tree farm and cut down our own magical Christmas tree. And we did… sort of. In reality, the trees were pre-cut and Anna sighed at the lack of snow on the ground. We tried our best to ignore the frosty wind making our faces and fingers hurt while we searched for the perfect tree. But boy did we find it. When we got home and the tree barely fit through our front door, I realized all too soon that
They laughed when I said they could sing “Happy Birthday” to me. They must have thought I was joking. Maybe a mature milestone meant I should be over such childish wishes. I wasn’t. I attach meaning to the ritual of a verse sung by voices of those I love, and it made my heart glad as I prepared to blow out the dozens of candles on the cake on which was written one word in big red letters: Happy. I’ve attached meaning to much over this lifetime. Sometimes it served me and sometimes not. I attached meaning to the opinions
She stared out the passenger window of my car with a steady stream of tears trailing down her cheeks. I gripped the steering wheel to steady myself wishing for any way to make this bearable for her. It was two days before Thanksgiving and I was driving Lori, my paralegal of 15 years, to the hospital where her daughter-in-law was losing her first baby at 24 weeks of pregnancy. Lori was trying to find strength for her family and as she grappled with the loss of her first granddaughter. “It isn’t fair,” she whispered into the world as I realized
