Senior Mama

Having written the Senior Mama column here for the past two years, I’ve decided to take advantage of my position as Wise Older Woman to offer some writing encouragement for…

I left Peñasco and returned to my classes, fell in love, married, moved away, but never quite forgot the women of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, who passed their healing…

Tony’s heart is broken. Literally. Maybe that shouldn’t surprise us, since when we adopted him as an infant he was suffering from congestive heart failure, a complication of his premature…

Next week is our son Lee’s birthday. He will be 41. We’re planning some of his favorite foods for the occasion: Chinese chicken, stir-fried vegetables and brown rice, with lemon…

For the past several months we’ve been trying out a new church, Lutheran this time. Nobody there is mean or rude. They’re nice people, even welcoming. The church is in…

Last month Tony, our adult son with autism, eloped again. Eloped: in the autism world that word doesn’t refer to an over-eager love bond resulting in instant marriage. No, it’s…

Maybe Aesop had it wrong. Or maybe he’s just 2,600 years out of date. That’s how long ago he first told his moralistic tales, and they’ve been repeated ever since.…

Something has set Tony off. Dude knows it, and he sticks to Tony’s side, but even his persistent nudging doesn’t distract Tony from his glowering mood. We cancel our plans…

My daughter is going to war. She is barely five feet tall and finds it amusing that with her small frame she will be lugging four seabags and an M-16.…

Bob and I worry about the worth of things. Dara and Tony, our youngest daughter and son, never give it a thought. They’re tender, both of them, perpetually on the…

Letting our kids go is a process that begins the moment they emerge from the womb, suddenly loose in the world. Or, whenever we adopt, it begins in that golden…