The year was 1968: the Vietnam War was raging, psychedelic music and drugs were “in,” Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated a week before President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act and the Beatles released the White Album to mixed reviews. I was about to enter 9th grade and amidst the free love and political…
The morning of my wedding day, my mother called me into her bedroom. “Sit with me, mi alma,” she said quietly, patting the spot next to her on the bed. I sat down beside her, the softness of the mattress causing our bodies to curve into each other like a pair of parenthesis. She turned…
I consider myself a fairly educated person when it comes to medical issues. True, I am not a doctor, although I often make recommendations to my family and friends as if I had completed multiple residencies. But between personal experience and having been married to a doctor for over 30 years, I definitely have a…
Ever since I can remember, I have been in a relationship with God. Despite growing up in a family of agnostics, I always believed in, and even felt, the presence of God in my world. My idea of God as a child was that of a Biblical God – all-knowing, omnipotent, fatherlike and ubiquitous. My…
I watched him care for his wife until she passed away. He was very quiet, not prone to conversation, but always had a shy smile and a comfortable way about him. I didn’t see him much after she died, except when he would head out of his driveway on his 10-speed bike for one of…
I grew up in a home where money was talked about openly and often. Not about how much money my dad made, but about how he invested it so that it would grow for the future. “Most people make money with their hands, but if you’re smart, you’ll learn how to make money with your…
This week I got a phone call from my daughter in San Francisco, the very same daughter who, six months ago, was struggling to figure out what to do post-college with a degree in anthropology. She is interning at a nonprofit agency by day and waitressing at night, having the time of her life as…
