Today is my son’s nineteenth birthday. And it’s the first time in many years that I won’t wake him up with kisses and my discordant rendition of “Happy Birthday,” or make him his favorite birthday dinner (stuffed shells), or present him with a Carvel ice cream cake late in the evening when his homework has … Continue reading Birthday Boy

My husband left this sticky note on my medicine cabinet mirror. It was a reply to a sticky note I had left on his medicine cabinet mirror which read, “Thank you for emptying the dishwasher and filling my car up with gas.” Certainly these are not the sweet love notes of those thrilling days of … Continue reading A Marriage Worth Sticking It Out

My daughter is slowly unloading. Today she presented me with a pile of pilled sweatshirts dug out from the back of her closet. Yesterday I was gifted the Swarovski crystal animal figurines I’d assumed had found their forever home atop her dresser. I recently acquired three of her drooping spider plants, apparently in need of … Continue reading My Daughter’s Leaving For College And All I Get Is This Lousy Gecko

In a photo my husband took of me almost 16 years ago, I am leaning on the double stroller in front of me, my two babies are perched inside, and the slightest hint of a smile plays on my lips. What that photo does not reveal is that I was in the throes of a … Continue reading 4 Extraordinary Gifts My Chronic Illness Gave My Children

Today we dropped our son off at the train station to return to college for the spring semester of his freshman year. I returned home and found the house too quiet. I missed his chatter, his guitar music and video games. Every corner of the house felt barren in his absence. And then I started … Continue reading A Son’s Sweet Love Notes

Sixteen years ago my daughter was born completely bald. In this respect she was certainly neither unique nor precocious. I, her young and sanguine new mom, in fact paid little heed to this inauspicious development. I was already dreaming of the day when that perfect tiny face would be ringed with waves of thick, auburn … Continue reading Loving and Letting Go With One Final Braid

As sultry summer days slowly gave way to brisk autumn evenings, and the burnt orange leaves hinted at cooler days ahead, I was undergoing a transition of my own. We had moved my first-born child, my son, into college in August. Dripping with sweat, we hauled load after load of his most “important” belongings up … Continue reading Finding Peace on Parents Weekend

I'd handled most of that first week like a champion. The week after I dropped my oldest child off at college 350 miles away from home. I walked by his empty bedroom and felt a twinge of panic as I stood in the doorway, but I held it together, vacuumed and dusted his mostly empty … Continue reading Rebuilding Our Family Traditions

This is the season of commencement speeches. High school seniors are electric with the anticipation of new environs, and even newer freedoms. Young men and women launched from colleges and universities big and small are filled with possibility as they stand poised to enter that colossal unknown—the real world. So many young souls are right … Continue reading The One Thing Missing from Graduation Speeches: Ordinariness