Saturday morning at Shrine Mont – mountain retreat center for our church family where we go every June, every Father’s Day weekend. Near thirty years. This being the year boy goes it alone. I’m up bird early, enjoying a coffee and the random, ungathered sounds of the morning. It’s still so cool for June, and Continue reading

I struggled with this one. Right up until her heart broke I struggled with it. Much of it was written three springs ago, when you could practically hear the falling of shoes, the dashing of plans, the breaking of promises…and yet, the beautiful green and luminous spring…strangled by Covid. You could actually hear the heart Continue reading

December 2022 Got my holiday FOMO in high gear again this year, feeling sad and torn over all the lovely holiday events and activities going on that we won’t attend. Too busy, too behind, too stressed, and too much dealing with the “extra-curricular” of life to enjoy the season. Facebook feeds it, of course, and Continue reading

What was the play? I wanted to ask They went to see a play. A class field trip—is there anything more fun especially for college kids. What was the play they all went to see? Was it Madness on the Playground? Shooter at Large? Was it Play Dead, Little Girl or Christmas comes to Sandy Continue reading

It’s taking everything in me not to pack my bags and head to my daughter’s college, where a shooting has locked down the campus through the night. She answers my desperate texts with one- and two- word responses, just enough to honor a pre-agreed communications protocol left over from the teen years. She does not Continue reading

The woods are the way I remember—not like they’ve been waiting 30 years for me to come back, but close. Still and yellow, falling light sharded between the trees that line the paved path winding along a forest stream. Mom and I, on a glorious fall afternoon, are on a quest to find an old Continue reading

Weekend in New England. The trip is now a tradition that started with my father. He was diagnosed after Labor Day one fall, after a long spring and summer of tests and doctors and waiting on results. I don’t recall whether we saw him that summer or not, or if it went by as they Continue reading

I came across this tale “remade” after a Yiddish fable I used to read to the kids when they were little. One of my favorites in terms of teaching resilience and perspective, I tried to point to the faith at the deep center of our strength here at the nut–er, Burk House. We are all Continue reading

It’s not that different, seeing her little room at the end of the hall. It’s still tidy, and tastefully decorated—bed made, pillows in place—with enough whimsy and trappings of the girl who lives lived here to make you think she’s just stepped out. But if you stand in the doorway long enough there’s a stillness, Continue reading

I didn’t even know my oven had a “356” degrees. Turn out it does. That’s the conversion temp for the 180 degrees C that our exchange student needs to create his masterpiece, as tonight he plays the French chef. We’ve been to the grocery store, he and I, we’ve discussed the menu, we’ve been bien Continue reading