The final entry for the Blogging from A to Z in April challenge At my fiftieth high school reunion some years ago, a grade school classmate, whom I hadn't seen in years, told me she remembered me as being zany. I smiled and hoped it was a compliment, because I didn't know what the word …
Category: God
W is for Westminster
An entry for the Blogging A to Z in April challenge In addition to my daughter and her family, two communities saved my life when we moved after fifty years in Chicago, a city of about 3 million, to the much smaller Sioux Falls, a town of under 300,000. Those two are OLLI--Osher Life Learning …
V is for Victory
An entry for the Blogging from A to Z in April challenge. The first word that came to mind with the letter V was victory. And with victory the words and tune of the song V is for Victory cascaded from my memory. I remember learning this song in Christian School, probably in the lower …
S is for Saying Farewell to My Nursing Files
I stand here by a wall of metal file cabinets—three in a row, four drawers each—a nursing career of memories nestled in the southwest corner of my study. My life’s work written on hundreds, maybe thousands, of pages hanging neatly in file folders. After twenty-two years in our three-bedroom house in suburban Chicago, I am …
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Q is for Quaker
Did you play the alphabet game on car trips as a child? I vividly remember someone shouting START and then peering out the window to find the letters on signs. We couldn't get them off anything that moved, so signage on cars and trucks were not allowed. Who ever found a letter first would smugly …
O is for Omniscient, Omnipresent, and Omnipotent
An entry for the Blogging from A to Z in April Challenge Finding a word (or words) for the letter O was a no-brainer. From childhood, these attributes of God have lived in my heart. Having this vocabulary to describe God's presence in my life has grounded me and given me comfort all these years. …
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Tears of Thanksgiving
They started in my church parking lot. When I turned in, off of 26th Street, an older masked man motioned for me to veer right. Then a second older masked man signaled for me to open my window. He leaned over and told me to follow the car in front of me. I did. And …
Writing Workshops: Helpful?
Have you ever had your writing critiqued in a writing workshop? If not, you’d be in for an experience like none other. My first encounter was in one of the first writing workshops I took in the year 2000. The piece was my first attempt at writing poetry; in fact, it was one of my …
Grief at Twenty-four Months: A Rummage Sale Made Me Do It
On this second anniversary of my husband's death, I've made an unplanned purge of his belongings. Our church's rummage sale, first canceled due to the virus, then reinstated a few months later, prompted me to do it. Just two years and two days ago, Marv directed our daughter to take his cords to our church's …
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Grief at Twenty-three Months: More Writing
As I was approaching this two-year mark of my husband's death, I noticed not all is well yet as I'd hoped. I wasn't expecting the impact of loss to disappear, but I was hoping for fewer experiences of active grieving. This past month, a few members of Marv's family have passed away. That brought grieving …
Write Along with Me 