Category: Family

Late in life, Mom gave me the brown tweed suitcase that housed the treasures of her youth.  She passed it on about twenty years ago.  I knew of the suitcase because I examined its contents several times while I still lived at home. My first look took place when I was in the seventh grade, …

Lots of families take family pictures.  For Lindsay, David, Brady and Eva, it’s a yearly event.  They meet with a photographer each fall and have a formal photo shoot.  Lindsay is in charge of selecting a location and the crew’s attire.  I always look forward to seeing the new batch.  It’s a great way to …

Ruth and I started our fifty-second chapter on Monday.  Sunday was our fifty-first wedding anniversary.  The years just keep clicking by. We didn’t have our sights set on fifty plus years when we began our life together.  We just lived as best we could.  You experience a ton of things over that much time, and …

Eva is a high school freshman this year, and Brady is a senior. Eva will experience a series of firsts and Brady will have several lasts. That’s how growing up works. Both are bittersweet. Having a family and raising children is not for the faint of heart. It takes patience and dedication. You raise them …

Young Jackson James is learning to speak.  He’s got an extensive vocabulary for a seventeen-month-old.  Kate and Michael interact with him much like Ruth and I did with our three as they were growing up.  We never used “baby talk” to speak with the kids.  We held normal conversations using our adult vocabulary.  Mike and …

One of Ruth’s and my greatest joys is our three kids, and their spouses, all enjoy being together.  They truly love each other.   All families can’t say that.  We’re blessed. A few years ago, Elizabeth, Lindsay and Kate were on a girls’ weekend in California. The boys, Ruth, and I were kept in the loop …

Ruth and I didn’t discuss how many children we wanted until after we married.  We were engaged about twenty-two hours so getting married was our focus, not the number of children we’d have.  During our first conversation, Ruth lobbied for t  wo, and I wanted three.  My preference was two boys and a girl.  With …

I was at a family Thanksgiving dinner at my Aunt Ruth’s house when Mom made the announcement.  Dad was retiring, and he had Parkinson’s disease.  He’d been off work for about six weeks after cutting his hand on a broken pop bottle.  Broken bottles were a part of the job when you deliver pop for …

I was having breakfast Monday morning when thoughts of my dad popped into my head. They came from out of nowhere. I was reviewing the day’s agenda and my thoughts drifted to him. I started thinking about his last day, the last time I spoke to him, the words we shared, the people who stopped …

We have a walker! That’s what Michael’s text read on Wednesday evening. Jackson James has been walking around things and taken steps holding on to his mom or dad, but this was his first solo romp. Firsts are a big deal. I spoke to Mike on the phone the following evening, and he reported Jackson …