One of the things I love about living in a part of the country that has four seasons is that we can experience so many different “rebirths” throughout the year. Like the freshness of watching things turn green every spring after the long winter’s nap, or the cleansing of winter when everything is covered in a blanket of fresh white snow. And then there is…
When I was 16 I knew way way more than my mother. When I was 30, a young mother myself, I realized how much I owed my mom, who was always there when I needed her. To help pack and move, to cook and bake for special occasions, to babysit so we could get away and travel to exotic places. In my 40s and 50s,…
I’ve spent a lot of time in the last two weeks with my 2-year-old grandson Knolan because his parents are in the process of packing and moving to a new house in Bear, Delaware. What a hoot. He is at that stage where he seems to be changing every week, both physically and verbally. All of a sudden he’s gone from a two-word vocabulary of…
My almost daughter-in-law Emily achieved one of her dreams when she qualified for the Boston Marathon. Prior to that she and our son Bayen had run the Philadelphia Marathon, the Marine Corp Marathon in Washington D.C. and others. But they lived in Boston and their dream was to run in their city, with their friends, down the streets they knew and loved their whole adult…
It never ceases to amaze me what a few people can do when they set their minds to it. About a year ago I became acquainted with a few local zealots in West Chester who had bonded together out of common concerns and formed a non-profit organization called Uptown! Entertainment Alliance. They had decided that their “perfect town” was missing two things: a waterfront and…
I’m in a quandary about family get-togethers and really need some help on this one. In a recent column I highlighted an upcoming trip my whole (parental) family is taking to Italy with my 86-year-old mother. There are four couples involved, my three siblings and spouses, plus my mother, nine people total. We will be going in September because that’s the only possible time all…
It was early on a Monday morning and we were having coffee in the kitchen. Without warning the front door opened and someone stepped inside and began to yell, “Hello, hello. Who’s here?” It took me a minute to respond and by that time he was in the kitchen. “Can I help you,” I said. He wanted to know if he was at house number…
It’s now been a year and a half and I’m still finding out things and figuring out things about being retired. Yes, there are decisions. There are issues. There are changes. There are questions. There are doubts. There are fears. About money (will I have enough to last for the rest of my life?) About health (will my aches and pains keep getting worse as…
Something wonderful happened to me last week. I went to the first meeting of my new book club in West Chester. Now this may not seem overly exciting to those of you who have been part of such a group for years, but for me it meant several important things. One, it’s a part of my new retired life and community – something I didn’t…
In my immediate family, we no longer give gifts for the holidays. The boys are all grown up and far away, and I no longer know what they need or want, what size they wear, what products they use. Instead, we do a simple gift exchange, orchestrated by our systems engineer son, with each of us buying one gift for one family member. Simple, easy,…
Last week marked the third anniversary of my father’s death and I feel sadder today than I did three years ago when he died at 89. Not because I miss him more with the passing of time but because I think I finally started to have an emotional bond with him this year, long after any possibility of sharing my new insights with him or…