Do memories bring a smile or a tear — Sleep won’t come. You’ve tried and tried. Finally drifted off. And then, echoes of long-ago times crept into your sleep-drugged, half-awake, semi-conscious state. You fought to return to the oblivion of delta sleep. But the onomatopoeia persists, clawing at the door that leads to memories from way back when. The…

The Jesuits gone done it again — Do I reflect on and thank God for my gift of faith? As so often, the daily 3-minute reflection by the Jesuits brought me up short. The reading was - “Does, then, the one who supplies the Spirit to you and works mighty deeds among you do so from works…

What Is A Kicker Anyway I’ve been writing on and off on Medium since 2018. Long enough to have lived through the ups and downs and the whatever. I kept plugging along in case one of my stories took off. Somewhere along the line, a publication I wrote for said…

Childhood memories Grandma’s Strawberry Patch Was the Best And the reason I’m not too fond of strawberries nowadays Circa 1957 saw a thirteen-year-old me safely ensconced in an all-girls boarding school in faraway South Africa. Yup, I’m a product of the British boarding school system and would not have had it any other way. …

Forgiveness It’s Silly. You’d Sound Stupid Ah, the language of love My husband is a kind and generous man. Sadly, two words in his vocabulary are rusty from not being used, and even when he tries, it sticks in his throat, and he sorts of gargles. And gives up. Those words? I’m sorry He makes…

Memories Not All Anniversaries Are Happy Ones When cancer takes another life Christmas Eve, it will be one year since my brother left us. The pain is still fresh. But it will never go away. One learns to live with it, and time softens grief. I have many memories. …

A church to call home — The year was 1994. I arrived in the States, a wreck. My daughter was in Switzerland, and my dogs were in Spain. And my marriage was in turmoil I’ve written about this mess before, but such is my filing system and my memory that I cannot find the article. …

Priorities The Time God Was Replaced by a Boat Parade Because I’d forgotten the limitations of an aging body I was up early as usual on the fateful Saturday morning in question. Shower, take out the dogs, make coffee, and sit at the computer. The husband shows up. …

Be thankful for what you have — The table was perfect! Flowers and tiny cards with names on them. Held in a turkey beak with gobble-gobble printed on the back. Fun for the young ones. My brother was making the long trip from South Africa to enjoy his first-ever American Thanksgiving. The real thing with roast turkey…