Religion can bring out the best in people and the worst in people. My two grandmothers spent most of their lives proving this point to me. Ida Louise and Lulu. One was a Catholic and the other was a Pentecostal. My father, like his father, had little interest in Pentecostalism and because he wanted to…
In the 1970s, if you were in the military and stationed in Korea, it was called a Remote Tour. That meant you were separated from your family for up to 13 months. Of course, in the 70s the only thing that existed was the Postal Service. There was no Internet. There was no e-mail. No…
The line wasn’t long. The secret is: Get to the DMV as early as possible. Another secret is: Move to a smaller county with a smaller DMV. After less than a 10-minute wait, Amy, the DMV worker, called me up and asked how she could help. “I need to renew my plates,” and handed her…
A Blue Dude Living in a Red Neighborhood I live in a Red State. And in a Red County. My neighborhood is mostly Red. It’s a small neighborhood. Not very diverse unless you count the 2 white-passing women with Middle Eastern descent. I’m very fond of one of them. Thus far, I have very little…
To understand the meaning of a word, sometimes it helps to know what it’s not. If you’re not resilient, it’s likely that you’re vulnerable. That’s a word we’ve heard a lot during the Covid Pandemic. The CDC prioritized vulnerable people as the first to get Covid vaccinations. These people included older adults (65+ years old),…
What did you call your grandparents? I called mine ‘grandma’ and ‘grandpa,’ and then use their first names when talking about them: Grandpa Jim and Grandma Louise, my maternal grandparents, and Grandpa Pat and Grandma Lulu, my paternal grandparents. If I asked you to recall the most vivid memory of each of your grandparents, what…
Part 1: My Parents The last 10 years of my father‘s life were very difficult. He died at 82. At 72 he had quintuple coronary artery bypass surgery. Then he received an Aortobifemoral Artery Replacement. And then he needed a small section of his colon removed because of cancer. The doctor performed the heart bypass…
There is a very thin line between living and dying, in much the same way that there is a thin line between fiction and non-fiction. I wonder what Mom would say? As a Jungian-Inspired Psychotherapist, I spend time doing “shadow work.” James Hollis, a Jungian Analyst, suggests that we do this by having conversations with…
I was in the hospital room with my mother when she died. It was just Mom and me. Her death was a little unexpected because she had been in very good health. I honestly don’t know what caused her death. It had something to do with an infection, but maybe it was congestive heart failure….
My wife and I were running errands the other day. We were fighting traffic on Bardstown Road and she shared some of the posts from some of her Friends on her Facebook page. Then, one of her past memories popped up from ten years ago. It was one where we had gone to Waterfront Wednesday…
