family

  • Obituary

    My Dad and his brother Franny are part of a generation, or maybe just a neighborhood, that is all about honor. Doing the right thing when no one is watching and paying respect are lost arts these days, but it’s part of how they grew up in South Boston in the 1950s and ’60s. It’s…

  • Broken

    “The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places.” Ernest Hemingway I love this quote. Hemingway places two words together which many wouldn’t expect but which absolutely belong: broken and strong. I look around and see how people struggle, I see my own struggles, and it’s crystal clear to me that we…

  • It’s a Boy!

    I passed balloons tied to a lamppost while walking my dog on the eve of my son’s 18th birthday. Someone in the neighborhood had recently had a baby, and the sight of those “It’s a Boy!” swaying balloons immediately brought me back to when we brought Brian home from the hospital. The lead up to…

  • Adopted

    my dog is adopted she had a whole life before this and she used to shake and shudder and not eat and not walk in those early days with us then she barked at passers-by apparently concerned about her safety or mine and I couldn’t understand it because I knew she was safe but she…

  • Dr. Who Chicken and the Good Tomatoes

    Last Summer, we spent much of the precious daughter-home-from-camp-weekend time binge watching multiple seasons of Dr. Who.   At the same time, we discovered how delicious chicken thighs were when cooked on the grill, and we grilled many, many pounds of them with piles of red peppers, zucchini, Vidalia onion, and eggplant. These were perfect dinners,…

  • Be Still

    I sat down with my cheese, crackers, nectarine and recorded episode of Real Housewives of NYC yesterday to enjoy a little quiet time after a busy morning when I heard my dog barking outside. She is a fiercely protective, twenty-two pound beagle mix, and she vigorously defends me from everyone who walks down my street.…

  • Alternate Reality

    Last night at dinner, my son asked if we had ever considered the possibility that each of us was the only person who had ever existed and that everyone and everything else in history was a figment of our imagination. My daughter replied that she hadn’t had that particular thought, but had pondered whether we…

  • Summer of Change

    I am a few days into the Summer of Dread. With one kid at camp and one out working, I feared I would find myself aimless and depressed, and I will battle those demons in these months, to be sure. What I did not know is how a dog would change everything. Back when my…

  • Mothers

    “And it occurs to me that maybe the reason my mother was so exhausted all the time wasn’t because she was doing so much, but because she was feeling so much.” ~Kelly Corrigan, Glitter and Glue Mothers are bad ass.  I look at the delicate feminine symbols of Mother’s Day with a cynical eye.  Pale…

  • Outer Banks

    In the long, snowy, record-breaking Winter that led up to our Outer Banks vacation, I would often imagine myself on the beach in April. I thought, if I can just make it through the cold and snow, I’ll be rewarded there. I imagined myself flat on my back in what I hoped would be hot…