As I looked out at my smiling family, in our lush backyard summer gardens on that sunny August day, I whispered to myself, “I never imagined this.” Not in my craziest dreams did I ever expect to be a septuagenarian bride, exchanging wedding vows beside my Charlie…

Perhaps because my late husband was a pastor, some people thought they were helpful after Tom’s death to tell me, “God needed another angel in heaven.” (Wrong! I needed that angel beside me, not gone away.) Or they said, “I know exactly how you feel…

Before Great Gram got hitched at age 20, as they used to say, she was a teacher in a one-room rural Iowa schoolhouse. After marriage, she wasn’t allowed to teach. That was written in her contract. As a teacher, she called her readin’ and writin’…

The best benefit of “Camp Grandma & Grandpa” for us during last summer’s pandemic peak was precious time with our grandsons and their parents. We never shared this many weeks together with them since their own childhood… and they probably…

Your money style, whatever it may be, can be helpful, but it can also block your progress. Oftentimes we cling to beliefs about money without even thinking about why we hold them…

The Merriam-Webster’s dictionary defines legacy as “something transmitted by or received from an ancestor or predecessor from the past.” It’s common to hear about legacies “living on” today when they continue to affect those in the present…

Many years ago, when a woman’s husband died, she went into mourning – sometimes wearing black “widow’s weeds” for a year or more. Generally, she remained alone after that year or perhaps moved into an adult child’s home. That was the case with my…

A couple of years ago, I began penning poetry. My life was moving in new directions, and I wanted to express myself differently than with the prose style approach I mainly used before. I enjoyed reading poetry, so I decided to try…

The death of my husband more than a decade ago was the toughest experience of my life. I had turned 60 just a month before his passing. I fully expected that at my age and stage of life, I should and would be content with my professional work…

After my husband died, I continued to wear my diamond ring on my left hand for almost a year. Then I shifted it to the right hand where I wore it for many more months. I kept moving it back and forth – left hand for a few days…