“Glasses half full and not half empty, Kaia,” my dad often said to me before I’d step out of the car for school each morning. If it wasn’t this one, he might have chosen “Carpe Diem” or even translated it…

I was surprised when I received a birthday card in the mail from my friend Jenny. This was her birthday month, not mine. Even though I moved out of state years ago, I still missed our friendship and especially our…

You may remember it as the “Hot and Hot Fish Club” or you may now know it as one of the best venues on the inlet to listen to some groovin’ tunes, but this gathering place is more dynamic than…

My neighbor, lawyer, and friend, Sally, sat across the kitchen table from me. “Okay,” she said, “Let’s get going on the paperwork the agency sent me for Kelsey’s adoption.” She started reading the document to me, and hearing “Birth Mother,…

In the summer of my eighth grade, I moved with my adoptive mother and stepfather to a beautiful, quaint community that had been seriously marred by escalating drug abuse at that time. Only a few weeks into the school year,…

Without saying a word, my mother taught me a truth that has set me free. I was a teenager when my 39-year-old, stay-at-home mom decided to become a nurse. She did not drive, and we lived on a lake in…

My second son’s third kid, three-and-a-half months old, was soon to be christened. Although we couldn’t make it to the baptisms of the older two, we decided we’d trek up to New York for this one. Also, it was the…

My son, Evan, was born with a kind and generous spirit. It was recognizable from an early age when he demonstrated concern for his friends and family members. People complimented my husband and me and told us we were doing…