Awhile back I mentioned these holidays have been harder for me than usual. I’ve always loved them, but this year, I’m happy to see them go. Here’s why: Beth broke her hand. That sucks for both of us. I miss my mother, my father, and my sister. And in the past few weeks three people […]

While looking over (okay, listening to) stats from this year’s Safe & Sound blog, I discovered that more people visited here on May 10 than any other day in 2015. No surprise, really. That’s the day we published Mike’s very moving post called “Our version of all right.” The post was part of his weekly Mondays with Mike series, […]

We had a mostly wonderful week—we celebrated Christmas with Beth’s family, we celebrated Beth’s birthday, and we traveled to Wisconsin to see our son Gus at his group home, where we found him in terrific spirits. And then I read about this. A 19 year-old college student and a 55-year-old mother of five shot dead […]

Am I the only one having a hard time remembering that today is a Friday? That it’s December 25th? Christmas Day? Above-freezing temperatures in Chicago today are making it feel more like opening day than Christmas day. My great-niece Floey and I celebrated birthdays this week that pretty much trumped (oh, that word!) Christmas. This […]

This holiday season has me more moody than I can ever remember at this time of year. Part of it is just missing departed loved ones more. And then, well, just about everything going on in the world seems to be stupid right about now. So early Saturday afternoon, as we rode the Blue Line to […]