Alone at Christmas
I’d been trying not to think about Christmas, dreading the day, hoping against hope that some angel would come into my life and make everything okay. I even tried pretend... »
Personal Accounts
The caverns
For my son's twelfth birthday, he wanted to explore underground caverns near our home. I was less enthusiastic, but despite my efforts to come up with alternatives, he co... »
No challenge too great
The voices seemed muffled as I slowly woke out of the anesthesia following a medical procedure on my back. I heard the doctor’s gloomy prognosis: “She might not be able t... »
Life as a climb
The other day, some friends took me on what I thought would be a short climb. We parked the car and took a look at the summit. We got out our climbing gear and started pu... »
Painting a rainbow from life’s darkest storm
I first learned about Fu-Hua Chuang when my family and I watched a documentary that featured several severely disabled yet talented young people. I was struck by the radi... »
The secret supply
There is an old fable about two neighbors who planted similar orchards. One watered his plants every day, but the other, only every few days. When the dry season came, th... »
A card full of hope
He looked so sad when I first saw him. He was quite a few years older than I, but like I did during my first days in that impersonal hospital ward, he felt scared and wor... »
Hiding place
In the tempestuous, stormy moments of our lives, we often focus so intently on finding a way of escape or rescue that we altogether forget about the most reliable and tru... »
Sharing the balm of love
Some years back, at midnight on March 17—Saint Patrick’s Day—I received a call from my 27-year-old son’s roommate in Bermuda. My boy was missing, and his clothing had bee... »
The bookmark
I’m sitting here staring at the side of my computer screen, where I’ve stuck one of the cutest little bookmarks I’ve ever owned. It has a picture of a mother hugging a li... »
Jewels of the deep
Always on the lookout for something pretty, I noticed a small nugget of smooth glass as I walked along the beach. When it’s smooth and polished, an ordinary piece of glas... »
Tears and mends
When I was a child, my mother used to keep a pile of clothes to mend, mostly belonging to us kids, by the sewing machine, and she would patiently work on them every Satur... »
Out of my comfort zone
Recently, I had the uneasy feeling that I needed a change, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on what it was. I had a nagging feeling, but I didn’t make much effort to do... »