I was three when Social Services brought Mary to our home. Recently born Mary. Angelic face. Fair. Lanky. Homeless. Unwanted. “Mentally retarded,” the social workers explained when dropping her off. An unclaimed parcel with no return address. With no available crib, Mom lined a banana box with blankets, carefully folding …
His life and brutal death by Roman crucifixion are historical facts. The earth shook. The sky blackened. The curtain in the temple, a four-inch-thick tapestry representing the separation between God and humanity, ripped from top to bottom by an invisible hand. His Father’s hand. For three days, Jesus Christ stayed …
She’s a faded memory now, the recent high school grad in spectacles and seersucker, standing at the edge of Rome’s massive Trevi Fountain. Me. Tossing a coin over my shoulder. Spinning to see where it landed. I can’t remember what, or even if, I wished anything, all those decades ago. …
“How long have you been married?” a friend asked, just after a recent anniversary. “Forty-seven years,” I responded, tossing out the number uppermost in my cognitive surface. All that year, I answered that question the same way. When our next anniversary showed up on the calendar, I took time to …
Friday Five Minute Word Grab (although this one went on very long.) The dog poses a conundrum. Old and gray, arthritic, deaf and blind. Stumbly, sleepy and sweet. But so, so beloved. He came to us at eight years old. We’d never had a dog like him. He waited for …
‘Someday’ sometimes comes!
I’m sure it’s out there. Waiting for me. The single placemat on my side of the dining table. In a few minutes I’ll leave my computer and check. While I still worked outside our home, I left the house before breakfast. After a half-hour commute to the office, I …
I thought I knew everything once. Young, quick of tongue, pregnant with opinions and quietly rebellious. Having travelled around the sun a few more times since youth, I see how wrong I was about most things that fuelled my arrogant words. The mental replays make me cringe. There I am, …
I heard it as a true story, but perhaps it’s just a really great parable. A certain country had been at war with another. From a high cliff above the sea, mounted messengers watched for returning naval ships, their sharp eyes focussed below. A patchy fog blanketed the water, interrupting …
After the war ended, Jim, one of the few surviving members of his regiment, The Black Watch (Royal Highlanders), had the devastating task of identifying his fallen comrade’s bodies. Fifty-seven years later, those memories haunted him.
