Tired from sorting through boxes and otherwise trying to reorganize my life following the death of my wife of 50 years married, lost to cancer, just over eight months ago, as well as attempt to return our home to some semblance of order so as to host our first Christmas without her, I wearily headed […]
Letter: We Realized Our Dream
I’m standing in the toy aisle at Walmart yesterday, shopping for my grandson’s birthday, and this woman approaches me and says “I’m from Kansas.” And I’m thinking ‘oookkkk?’ Then she says “In Kansas we don’t have locked toy cabinets!” So, I say, “Maybe that’s because in Kansas there’s nothing to steal?” Now, with hands on […]
Letter: That’s What We Do
Yesterday was a difficult day in the most difficult time of the year. Yesterday I stood in front of a world-gone-brilliantly-white beautifully decorated Christmas Tree, one of 26 on display at the Mary Bridge Children’s Festival of Trees. And as I stood there, I was still trying to hide my emotions. Moments before the song […]
Letter: Our Hearts, Hardwired for Home
Moms and dads with their little ones are lined up for pictures with Santa. Smiling arm-in-arm couples watch their children hop about on snowflakes which twirl about on the floor, their images projected from high in the rafters. Exquisitely decorated, soon to be auctioned, Christmas trees line the pavilion where husbands and wives consider their […]
Letter: I Found That One
We met at the University of Washington. That first day on campus I was lost. With over 500 buildings, occupying over 20,000,000 million (as in million) square feet, the University of Washington was, to me, during Orientation Days, as foreign as the Orient and I was as forlorn a freshman as was ever admitted on […]
Letter: Can You Laugh and Cry At The Same Time?
As I entered the kitchen this Thanksgiving morning to get my cup of coffee, there on the stove was a pie, made by our daughter, decorated with a simple tulip in honor of her Dutch mom, my wife. And just like that the tears started. Don’t ask me to pray today as the family gathers […]
Letter: The Crack in the Sidewalk
One carefully avoided – although just in time – the crack in the sidewalk. The other, the younger of the two, being blissfully unaware of how huge a misstep stepping on a concrete expansion joint really is – second only to stepping on the other’s shadow (not polite) – toddled alongside. With time and practice […]
Letter: When Those Grieving Return Home
The setting of the story entitled “The Secret Garden” where the narrative unfolds, centers around a private-walled, bramble-invested, weed-overgrown, unkempt- and long-unattended theater of sorts where once roses took center stage. Following the death of Archibald Craven’s wife – who tended the garden – the sorrowing, grieving husband locked the garden gate, buried the key, […]
Letter: When The World Leaves You Behind
Fifteen months into my service as school board director I lost my wife of 50 years to cancer, now just nine months ago today. And at a school board director’s conference this weekend I lost again. It is my hope that these two losses, added together, will equal a win for those who read what […]