Category: NEXT: An Empowerment Series

Maybe you have one. Your “Go-To Spirit Lifter.” Joyce is mine. When my mind was a mess, Joyce listened with the same compassion she’d give to a 7-year-old at the elementary school where she was a counselor. Her infectious laugh leaves you wondering why you ever thought you had something to cry about. Just before the pandemic we celebrated (There is a lot of celebrating when you are with Joyce) her birthday with a glorious sail on a Florida bay. My next visit I don’t expect she’ll remember me. Joyce was diagnosed with a rare and rapidly progressing brain disease.

Sometime before the sunlight snuck around the sides of the bedroom shades a delicious sounding summer rain began to fall. The darkness told me I need not rush out from under the comfort of my cotton quilt.  I listened.  I fell back to sleep with the peace of knowing the purple clematis would get her daily drink without me. The back yard’s newly sewn grass seeds would be grateful, too.  At 6:22 the seven o’clock train announced its arrival in the distance, sounding the same whistle I’ve heard since I was a child. The window ledge pigeon and her two babies were silent, but the birds whose songs I vowed in the spring to learn but haven’t yet, sang good morning.   Time to wake up.  The wheels of the cars of the early

That June was the last time he left home. It was the start of the slowest of the slow summer seasons of my life.  Hospice was happening. It was his last time he went down the stairs until he went without his spirit in a black zippered bag.  That June was a decade ago. It had been 11 years since the delivery of the grim cancer diagnosis during which the doctor suggested that our Alaskan family vacation could be our last.  But John defied all odds, doubling down on all things holistic from massage and meditation to wheatgrass juice and coffee enemas. Then as gently as the falling away of the spring blossoms, the day of a new season arrived.  With the passing of this

The smell of cigarette smoke rose off the paper bag wrapped tightly at the top.  Tucked alongside the brown glass quart of Falstaff beer were a half dozen Snicker bars—enough for the six of the eight of us kids still living at home. A true pay day delight. Reading Father’s Day tributes, I’m compelled to give one to mine as best I can. This requires calling forth memories. Dad’s return from the Rinky Dink Bar on Friday nights is one of mine. Also in my memory bank is the time he pulled a splinter out of my foot and the

Nobody mentioned the hundreds of innocent people murdered by angry mobs. No one spoke of the 35 blocks burned to the ground within 24 hours or of the fleeing of tens of thousands left homeless. Oklahomans didn’t know their history. I was a 17 when I traveled to Tulsa. A group of Omahans charged with developing a school desegregation plan went to see how they’d integrated theirs. It was 1973. White flight, years of redlining, and a freeway that sliced our Black community through its center had severely segregated our schools—some 20 years after the Supreme Court declared doing so

“The governor’s office is line two for you.” My heart pounded.   Once again someone not the governor had the chore of telling the unchosen prior to the press release that said it wasn’t you.  I’d applied to be a juvenile court judge. I detailed my career accomplishments, got glowing references, and confidently answered questions before the judicial nominating commission of nine. They advanced my name on the short list of the qualified. I travelled to the state capitol to interview with the governor.  “Next time,” the caller once consoled. Initially I was sufficiently politically naïve to believe them.  I resisted warnings that being an advocate for equality as the past president of the Nebraska chapter of the National Organization for Women disqualified me from being a judge in a state whose motto is “Equality before the law.” With each vacancy I,

“Are you leaving?” she asks from the sidewalk as I stood beside the door of my car. “Sorry, just arriving,” I say. I presumed the middle- aged woman in blue jeans and a black t-shirt was hoping for a parking spot in my gentrifying neighborhood.  She turns to keep walking. “If you was leaving I was going to ask you for a ride.” “I can give you a ride. I just need to make room.” “Can I help?”  She carries my newly purchased flat of red and white petunias inside before hopping into the only passenger seat of my tiny

“You’ll be a shining star!” “Be sure to join a study group.” “Whatever you do, don’t fall behind on your reading.”  She held her breath, smiled from ear to ear, and declared she wasn’t going to cry as the well wishes and wisdom tumbled down the chat in her final all team Zoom. Lindsay V. is heading to law school.  We are losing our legal assistant to her next chapter. She was just 12 years old when the fire to be a justice seeker was lit in her. Those with fear-filled hate sought to pass a local ordinance barring immigrant