To quote the great Yogi Berra, “When you come to a fork in the road, take it.” Looking back at my life is always an exercise in wondering. Many of the forks in the road happened during my childhood. Obviously, I had no control over those situations, so I never waste a great deal of […]

For the first year and a half of my life, I was the sole recipient of my mom’s and dad’s affection and adoration. From the day my brother joined our family, I was disheartened to find I would have to compete for my parents’ attention. When I turned 4 years old, I decided our family […]

Near the end of the time during which my youngest sister, Harriet, was able to adequately communicate, she called me every weekday afternoon at exactly the same time from her seat in the van going home from adult day care. She got off the van at Sunshine Market for her husband to take her to […]

Since the inception of the “holiday” National Siblings Day, my four siblings and I inevitably shout out to each other our gratitude for our relationship, forged in our tribal need to keep our parents happy and at bay. We are Irish twins: five kids, seven years apart. And boomers. We grew up with many children […]

My sister and I are five years apart in age. We were both adopted and are not biologically related at all. She always knew she had siblings and in her 40s she tracked them down. I went with her when she met her two 100 percent biological sisters for the first time. She arranged to […]

As a child I identified with the “old woman who lived in a shoe.” I was not the old woman. I was one of the “so many children, she didn’t know what to do.” Our mom was a devout French Catholic, let’s start with that. I was No. 3 in the birth order, and the […]

My parents drove us from Scarborough to Houlton to visit family every summer in the late ’50s and early ’60s. North of Bangor, the two-lane roads passed through miles of forests. My oldest sister sat up front, and my two younger sisters, brother and I occupied the back in those pre-seatbelt days. Somewhere in that […]

Our sister called us on Jan. 28, telling us it was time to come home. Our mother had suffered a stroke. Death was imminent. From Maine and parts of Massachusetts, we headed to Cape Cod. Hospice had arrived. Our beloved caretaker was there, stroking our mother’s hand, whispering words of comfort. We circled her bed, […]

“Rusty did it.” Didn’t matter the infraction, Rusty got blamed. “Who drank the last of the milk and put the empty carton back in the refrigerator!?” “Rusty did it.” “Who left their dirty plate under the couch!?” “Rusty did it.” Now, nine times out of 10, Rusty did do it, but not always. It became […]

There is a place that could be aptly named “Garden of Eden” but in actuality is really “garden of friend”: a friend who comprehends the healing, nourishing properties of nature’s proximity. It is a place that intersects between heaven and earth, a place that invites thought and introspection. It is a “homing” place to birdlife, […]