May 14
Memories are amazing things. We can remember smells and sounds, facts and figures, events and images. More amazingly, we can remember emotions. We can never have enough happy memories, while we usually try hard to suppress painful memories. Memories sometimes seem to have their own willpower. We can choose to recall them from our vast collection of …
May 12
On Mother’s Day our family for the first time visited the place in the woods where Elijah perished. Many have asked us about the experience. In short, it was emotional and difficult. And something very unusual happened. As a reminder, Elijah died the day after Thanksgiving. He was having some sort of breakdown, and we made a call …
May 07
I love fresh fruit. It’s amazing that we can enjoy fresh fruit all year long. At this very moment at locations all over the world plants are producing fruit to be shipped for our enjoyment and consumption. It makes sense that fruit tastes so good. Fruit contains the seeds for new plants, and we are willing to carry the fruit …
May 02
I’m not sure how many of you reading this have been parents, but I’m pretty sure that most of us have been children. And none of us remember everything our parents did to care for us. Having raised five children, Melanie and I can empathize with most young parents. We know what it’s like to be sleep deprived, …
Apr 25
A picture sometimes takes you to forgotten places. Memories can be quickly triggered by seeing pictures from our past. And our memories are rich with images, emotions and even experiences of pain and pleasure. During our coldest Minnesota winters, some friends in southern California will text me pictures of warm, sunny days, saying, “Picture this!” Evoking comforting …
Apr 23
Children are not supposed to die before their parents. It’s out of normal order, which helps explain the depth of pain we parents feel. Fortunately, it’s also a rare event for most families. So it’s understandable that I get asked a lot of questions about dealing with the loss of a teenage son. One of …
Apr 21
Is there someone in your life that you know you need to forgive? Maybe they did something mean that hurt you deeply. Maybe they refuse to apologize. Maybe they continue to do things on purpose that they know will hurt you. It can be so hard to forgive someone when we grow bitter and angry …
Apr 18
There is something terribly serious about a countdown. Counting down means that there is an important event anticipated. And a countdown, by definition, means that there is a limited amount of time before that event happens. Our lives are full of countdowns. The media begins counting down the months and days before an election; our …
Apr 15
The picture I chose for this post admittedly makes me sad. I don’t like to remember Elijah as being sad, but it reminded me that sadness is infectious. When we feel down, it’s easy to bring others down with us. As an emotion, ‘up’ and ‘down’ are charged with positive and negative feelings. We judge ‘up’ as …
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