I had to stop caring before I could understand what Mom had given me. Audrey was never the nicest person in the room. You wouldn’t know that from her persistent smile and good nature. But certain core beliefs boiled beneath the surface and, in telling moments, revealed her to be…

How two high-profile TV sackings spell doom for the Trump era…again Tucker Carlson and Don Lemon predate Donald Trump’s emergence as a bona fide newsmaker. But make no mistake: Both men are a product of Trumpian times. …

How escaping missiles and myths helped me explore my shortcomings When we landed in Dubai, I had little idea what to expect. That’s how I travel. I never do enough research. I’m not proud of it. It’s just a thing with me. Some years ago, I planned a family vacation…

How Mom got Dad ‘straight into heaven’ and ignited my decade-long search for a connection I didn’t understand — The first thing I did after touching down in St. Louis was call my sister, who had agreed to give me a ride. She was running late, which annoyed me. …

How I found myself in a home office with my young children decades before Covid, and why it was the best thing that ever happened to me. The aha moment for me came as I was shuttling my 12-year-old daughter, Lexie, and five of her girlfriends to an after-school birthday…

I was 11 years old at the time. Trust me. You don’t know the paralyzing fear of a child even before any shots are fired. — The first time someone pointed a gun at me I was 11 years old — about the same age as the kids in Uvalde, Texas. “Go outside and find something to do,” Mom had commanded. Evidently, I was being a bother, which must have been the case often because this…

Here’s what food company Campbell and automaker Ford can teach us about sticker shock, and how little the experts know about inflation. Sometime in the early 1970s, I was helping my mom unload the groceries. She didn’t have to ask. I enjoyed being in the kitchen and soaking up her…

Take a breath. Those online insults might make you laugh. Facebook went live in 2004 essentially fulfilling the grand promise of social media, which has roots back to the advent of Morse Code in 1844. What took two centuries to develop needed just two decades to implode. This is not…

A church disclosure identified my former high school guidance counselor as a predator. It’s been 50 years — and now it’s personal. — After so many revelations of priests abusing children, I should not have been surprised to find my old guidance counselor named in a church mea culpa. I attended Catholic schools for 16 years. …