“Just wanted you to know how your site has helped someone,” the reader from Illinois told me recently. “My girlfriend was being harassed…someone broke into her house and left an empty beer can in a conspicuous place and stole several photos of her and her children. The whole situation was really creepy. When she went […]

My husband and I recently went on an amazing date/adventure to Kaslo, B.C. where we enjoyed a delicious lunch at the newly renovated hotel on Front Street, did a wonderful hike on the Kaslo River Trail, took in breathtaking views, did some window-shopping…just had a phenomenal time. But it was on the way to Kaslo […]

I thought it was a joke: “Did you hear,” my eleven-year-old son announced when he bounded in the house at suppertime, “that Michael Jackson is dead? He had a heart attack.” “No way!” I replied. Sure enough it was true…the T.V. news confirmed he was dead…but of cardiac arrest (not the same as a heart […]

Brother David Steindl-Rast is a Benedictine monk, author and spiritual leader who implores us to open our eyes and really look at our day and all the blessings in it. Watch his fantastic video called “A Good Day”. It’s 5 minutes and 32 seconds long:   Melanie Hack Author of Who Killed My Sister, My […]

Above all we must realize that each of us makes a difference with our life. Each of us impacts the world around us every single day. We have a choice to use the gift of our life to make the world a better place – or not to bother. ~Jane Goodall Melanie Hack Author of […]

I did not choose to become bereaved. Painful as it is, I choose to allow grief to work progressively in me. I grieve because I lived much; my child died but my love for my child didn’t. Since I loved, and still love, very much, I expect my grief to be severe. I realize that […]

With Father’s Day fast approaching, here is an appropriate tale. I guarantee you will remember “The Wooden Bowl” tomorrow, a week from now, a month from now, a year from now: A frail old man went to live with his son, daughter-in-law, and four-year-old grandson. The old man’s hands trembled, his eyesight was blurred, and his step […]

The instant you are notified of a homicidal death of a loved one, you are set off from the world as you’ve know it. You feel isolated. And because society often places some of the blame on the victim and attaches stigma to the death, you can also feel as though no one understands the […]

This morning as I watched the sun rise I thought about the Desiderata poem shared at Cindy’s funeral. It seems fitting to share Max Ehrmann’s poem with all of you today…on what would have been Cindy’s 65th birthday. Desiderata (Things To Be Desired) Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there […]

June 11, 1989, my siblings and I go to the funeral home to see our sister’s body…Cindy’s body. A few years ago I wrote a Blog post about that experience…about how important it was, especially for my sister Marlene and I, to see Cindy’s body to make the reality begin…about some of what happened in […]