With a nephew who joined the Army and just left for boot camp, the 4th of July takes on a renewed significance for me – just as it did fifteen years ago when my son joined the Marines, leaving for basic training shortly after his high school graduation. Amidst all the 4th of July picnics and parades, the flags and the fireworks, I try never to lose focus of what the holiday is really about. And the fight for our independence – that took place [...]
I’m back. And I appreciate the thoughts, prayers, and support from those who read my blog and knew nothing except that I was going out of town unexpectedly, and would not be posting any blogs for a few weeks. The suddenness of our leaving town was due to a medical emergency with my mother-in-law, who was in and out of the hospital – and back in again – in the time we were there with her. That trip led directly into another one that we [...]
We’re just a few weeks away from Memorial Day, the unofficial start of summer. But in some ways, it feels like summer has already begun. We attended a graduation party yesterday for one of our neighbors who just finished college, and will soon be off to nursing school. In a few weeks we’ll be attending another graduation party – this one for our nephew. Since he enlisted in the Army, his high school graduation will not only be a celebration of his accomplishments, but a [...]
A friend of mine told me a story the other day that she warned me was going to be sad, but uplifting at the same time. She had been working on a craft project, and had that on her mind as she was going up and down the stairs retrieving supplies from different areas of the house. Because she was concentrating on that, she almost didn’t hear the quiet voice that whispered something inside her head. It was her mother’s voice – her mother who [...]
I rarely catch colds – maybe once every few years or so. So naturally, I came down with one a week before we were scheduled go visit our new granddaughter. I blame my son for jinxing me. "Be sure you're getting enough Vitamin C," he said in a phone conversation a few weeks earlier. "You don't want to get sick right before you come to see the baby." What made him even think of this was the fact that his brother-in-law had been planning to visit [...]
When my husband retired and we moved to Georgia – after 40 years in the Chicago area and 18 years in Minnesota, with a few other locations in between – we often said that we’d go back to visit family and friends up north, but never in the winter. That was before our son and daughter-in-law had a baby – our first grandchild – in the middle of January, in Minnesota. We were only joking, of course – well, half-joking – when we talked about [...]
“We’re going to be a little late getting there,” Richard said as we climbed into his car and left the hotel. It was Sunday morning, and we were on our way to 8:00 Mass at the Angal Parish church in the West Nile region of Uganda. I hate arriving late anywhere, especially places like church. It popped into my head briefly that perhaps we could sneak in quietly and sit, unnoticed, in a back pew, although I knew that wasn’t very likely. For one thing, [...]
Just call me Grandma. Our son and daughter-in-law just had a baby girl – their first child, and our first grandchild. She arrived almost a week past her due date, healthy and perfect. We haven’t seen her yet in person, but we are savoring – and showing off – the photos we’ve received. We can’t wait to visit them, after the new family has had a chance to settle in, get acquainted, and get used to a new life and routine at home. Most of [...]
They didn’t walk across the stage individually to receive their diplomas – which is a good thing, since there were more than 9,000 of them. Instead, as each area of study was presented, the graduates came out as a group, singing and dancing in celebration of their accomplishments. The graduates were women – young women mostly, but also women of all different ages – who completed community education programs throughout Wakiso District, one of the largest geographical districts in Uganda. To understand how significant this [...]
The theme of our Toastmasters meeting this week was “Holiday Traditions—the Profound, the Silly, and Everything In Between.” Our Toastmaster shared a holiday tradition his family practices, which is to give each other gifts you can’t wrap. As soon as he mentioned this, my mind immediately envisioned large or odd-shaped gifts that are difficult to wrap. Or were, before the invention of gift bags. But that’s not the kind of gift he was talking about. He explained by telling us first of the grandma who [...]