From time to time I receive invites for Meal Train. If you aren’t familiar with it, it is an online service that provides the opportunity to take meals to someone in need. A friend or family member will create a Meal Train for someone recovering from a recent hospital stay, an injury, or has a new baby. It's an excellent service and keeps the well-wishers on a schedule, and keeps the new mom from receiving five lasagnas on Tuesday. It's an efficient way to organize care and be of service. ...read more
Why We Like Likes: Choosing Moments Over Memories
I recently read an article about a couple whose gender reveal party didn’t go as planned. The balloon store made an error. They used bright, mixed balloons instead of pink or blue. The mother-to-be ends up in tears and the father-to-be begins cursing. They rectify the situation, and re-enact the scene with the correct color of party supplies for the camera. When the experience of recording an event becomes more essential than experiencing the event, we have risen to the level of PhD in ...read more
Inside the Mind of Suicide: Death and Other Options
Questions about suicide fly around my office more often than ever before. Big, round, bumble bee questions that have nowhere to land. They buzz and hum without resolution. Why? Why? Why? Since April of last year, there have been seven student suicides at one high school in Colorado Springs. Seven. It’s horrific and heartbreaking. The students, staff, and the community vacillate between profound sorrow and disconnection. Each time word of another death reaches us, there is a collective ...read more
Do You Have a 1,000-Yard Stare Story?
I recently watched the HBO series Band of Brothers. From the first episode to the last, it’s difficult to watch and equally as difficult to look away. One chapter follows Easy Company from mid-December 1944 through January 1945. They are fighting the Germans and brutal winter weather in densely forested terrain. Just after the fierce fighting, the utterly depleted, combat-weary men arrive in Haguenau. David, a soldier who had been wounded many months before, but is now recovered, meets up ...read more
The Day I Realized I Had Been Betrayed
I feel so betrayed. I’m feeling rejected and disregarded. It’s vulnerable to admit, but it’s the truth of how I feel. It feels shameful and painful to not be loved the way I desire to be. It’s not a story I like to share, but I hope it can help others dealing with betrayal. Last Thanksgiving, I got a baby lovebird named Walter. Walter is bright green, orange, and turquoise. He’s a beautiful, ornery little guy, and I love his tweet-tweet-quack throughout the house. ...read more