Exploring the Language That Helps Us Navigate Loss Death is an inevitable part of the human experience, yet it’s a topic we often tiptoe around. Instead of facing it head-on, we wrap it in layers of metaphor, humor, and gentle imagery. Have you Learn More

My 8th grade teacher, Mr. Perry, left our class with many lasting thoughts and phrases. His primary goal was to teach us helping verbs and literature. But occasionally we strayed into other topics.  As a former priest, he held very strong religious convictions Learn More

My dad never talked to his parents about their final instructions.    He says that even though his mother sent her sons to church school every Sunday, when she reached her seventies, she confessed that she did not believe in death or resurrection Learn More

When I think of songs to celebrate the end of one’s life, there are several that come to mind, depending upon the kind of life you lived and the music you loved. Everyone, of course, knows Amazing Grace.  It’s such a beautiful song Learn More

Unfortunately, the only rites of passage that we elders know much more about are funerals. We attend them too frequently. If humor’s a part of these essays, what’s so funny about death? Of course, we are depressed, unless we are just attending to Learn More

Sunday mornings are my trip through the New York Times. Our local paper actually prints the pages, and I go to the national news section to read the obits. To be sure I am not inadvertently there. The paid ones are on the Learn More