If you had peeked into her room, you would have seen a frail, sick woman. That isn't what I saw.
All in Family
Cartwheels and Cuervo
Unless you reared an exceptionally delightful, well-adjusted child, the post-high school summer is filled with unbearable conflict.
Tough Love: My Mother’s Gift To Me
It's taken me years to figure out why my mother never let me win at checkers, told me to fight my own battles and insisted on being unblinkingly honest.
Why I Didn’t Read The IG Report
My dad used to say the only bad thing about loving a dog is that you always outlive them. And he was right.
Tough-Love-Tom And The Suicide Hotline
Some intuitive person in the church basement got to know my dad and realized – most likely in a moment of exquisite horror – that rather than talking people off a ledge, my father was more likely to lose his temper and give them a metaphorical push.
Safe Keeping
For years my father drove around with a beakless duck decoy on the back seat of his car, as he searched for a replacement part.
BOGO Medicine
My parents were going to a doc who advertised on a radio station that once aired a two-man comedy show that had amused my father in the 1970s.
Our Papa Puzzle
The only thing we know for sure about my grandfather is where he is. His remains are in a cemetery in South River, N.J.
Heading Toward Happiness
I was secretly hoping they’d put little SG in a middle seat bookended by strangers. Hey, you buy a cheap ticket, you take the chance that you’ll be sitting next to a tiny chatterbox who’s not reliably potty trained.
Ancestors, Part II
Sifting through a box of recently discovered photos of my mother’s family, I find nothing but profoundly unattractive ancestors and eccentricity.
August Already? Did You Forget To Take Vacation?
Prepare yourself. Any minute now newspapers and magazines will be full of stories that mock Americans for not taking enough time off.
Driving My Liftie
You’d think that after major shoulder surgery you would ordered to remain blissfully sedentary for a while. Noting but Netflix, popcorn and Percocet. At least until the stitches come out.
You would be wrong.
Pour Me Another Cup Of That Waiting-Room Coffee
We’re all united by a shared, unspoken fear. None of us want our loved one to be that patient you hear about who died during a tricky bunion removal.
Sleeping Arrangements
I’d forgotten that toddlers sometimes sing in their sleep.
May 7, 1998
“Daddy’s on his way to the hospital,” came the quavering voice of my mother. “He had a heart attack.”
Travels With My Granddaughter
My granddaughter, the precocious Sawyer Grace, always pretends she knows the lyrics to any song on the radio, so I angled the rear view to see if she was singing along. She was, but when she caught me looking, she stopped and flashed a big surprised smile.
Billy Graham: More Than Just A Pastor To Presidents
Billy Graham told my Aunt Agnes that God loved her and that someday she’d go to heaven where she’d be like everyone else.
I Quit Journalism To Become A Ballerina
There was a time when at 10 a.m. on a Tuesday I might be interviewing the governor or calling cops about an unsolved murder.
Now I’m doing pliés to “I’m A Little Teapot.”