It was supposed to be a picnic, a reunion of forty-some family members in a summer cottage community to which my extended family has come for our entire lives.  There would be a cook-out in a park with a playground and a splashpad, and there would be a family photo to memorialize the occasion.  But ...

Because Campbell had told me that he was really interested in the Mississippi River, we did not head directly to Chicago after our riverboat ride.  We took a more meandering path north to Moline, IL.  I had envisioned maybe following the path of “Old Man River” through little towns, but by that time...

I love to pair my travels with literary experiences.  When I took our son Court across the country in 1994, we stopped at several Little House sites. When in New York City I have taken my children to some of the sites in “From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler” and “A Cricket in Times ...

My Aunt Martha was the family genealogist.  When she passed away, I asked if I could have all her files.  Her daughter was more than relieved to relinquish them to me, as they were taking up quite a bit of space in her garage.  I culled through them and made digitally produced albums for all the fam...

In 1994 I got a crazy idea.  I would drive from California to Michigan with only our eight-year-old son.  My one real fear was that we would get a flat tire somewhere.  But as we pulled off the freeway in Las Vegas the car in front of me got a blow-out, so I figured that he had gotten our flat, and ...

She had a conversation with a crow.
   He laughed at everything she said.
You wouldn’t define his affability
   as friendship, exactly,
nor would he seem unfriendly,
   despite a slightly ominous cackle--
he could be ridiculing her, I suppose,
   or he could find her hilariously funny.
As tedious as their e...

Lean and leaning,
   top-heavy with a mop
   of madly splaying frond hair,
regally towering above
   and swaying precipitously
   in the slightest tropical breeze
yet holding tenaciously as
   gales blow mighty--
   a miracle of strong fragility,
as wind and trees dance,
   ebb and flow
   in a divine choreogr...

We were so young.  We didn’t feel young, but I wasn’t quite 22.  We were launching on that big adventure called marriage, forty-eight years ago today.  Our wedding was a small affair in my mother’s home: only David’s immediate family and my extended family of cousins, aunts and uncles and grandmothe...

Every year on this day I remember my Grandma Mary.  Today would be her 128^th birthday.  Some years her birthday falls on Mother’s Day. Not so this year, but the date is still indelibly written on my heart. 

Grandma Mary had one child, my mom.  When my grandfather passed away in his sixties, Grandma...

Motherhood isn’t always the lovely and rewarding experience described by flowery greeting cards.  I know personally the challenges and even deep sadness that a mother goes through.  I suffered through one child’s learning disabilities and another’s life threatening autoimmune disease.  In addition, ...