There is no "ex" in father. Once a father, always a father.
My father used to say this to me, though not in these words. He used to say, because I was his only child, his "one and only" (these are his words), that he was the only one in the "whole world" (more of his words) who could call me "daughter." And I was the only one in the whole world who could call him "father."
Read MoreA few days ago, six of us were eating and talking about Rob Portman, the US senator from Ohio who had just announced that after a lifetime of opposing gay marriage, he had changed his mind.
His son had come out, and he had given gay marriage more thought, and I was dissing him for this, not for his change of opinion but for seeing the light only because his son, not someone else's, was gay.
And that's when my friend and teacher John O'Neil made me see the light. "It takes a face to change a heart," he said quietly.
Read MoreHere's what we've all been taught. To be polite. To be quiet. To not make a scene. To go with the flow. To be aware of other people's feelings.
Here's what we teach our children: To acknowledge a person's presence. To look someone in the eye. To say "please" and "thank you." To not interrupt. To say "excuse me." To be respectful.
And it's all good advice. Until it isn't.
Read MoreI have a picture of Adam taken in April seconds before he blew out the candles on his birthday cake. It's a photo I keep going back to because he is pure child in it, bright-eyed and full of wonder and innocence.
Sometimes it hurts to look at it.
And yet I keep on looking.
Read MoreIt was magical, the old telephone. It rang and you raced to it and picked it up and said ``hello?'' and someone - a friend, a neighbor, sometimes someone far away in another state - said ``hello'' back. And you got excited, hearing a certain voice, thrilled and surprised when it was your best friend calling, or a boy you just met, because the phone ringing was like a knock on a door or a gift-wrapped present. Always a mystery.
It was practical, too. ``I lost my homework page. Can you read me the questions?'' ``Want to go to the movies on Saturday?'' ``My mother said she'd pick us up after play practice tomorrow.'' And bingo, just like that, schedules were confirmed and problems solved.
Read MoreI had two mothers. That's what I've long thought.
The first was young and spry and pretty and hip. She sang and she danced and she loved old movies and show tunes and big hats and Johnny Carson.
The other mother was head-injured and infirm. A fall made her old. A fall took away all her prettiness. Before she fell, my mother was one person. After she fell, she was another. I knew both, I loved both, so I thought I knew her.
Read MoreThey're intrepid little flowers, dancing in the snow, lovely things - these orange and yellow marigolds that I have disparaged my whole life. They are the last to leave the party, a sudden standout because they stand alone.
The violet charm clematis that grew tall and leggy behind them; the blood red dahlias that dazzled beside them; the pinks and the plums and the purples that swayed and sashayed their way through June, July, and August, outshining them every day - did not outlast them. They have all vanished now like Cinderella's coach and gown. The clock struck, and they withered…
Read MoreChicago in 1830 was a military post and fur station where wolves prowled the streets at night and only 12 families lived. Just 30 years later, it had grown to a city of 100,000 and hosted the Republican National Convention.
I learned this the other day while listening to a book on tape, ``Team of Rivals'' by Doris Kearns Goodwin, which is really all about Abraham Lincoln, but became for me just one more affirmation that change is not endemic to now. Cities grow. Businesses fail. The sand we build our lives on is always shifting. That's life. Nothing stays the same and the world in which we grow up, the world we know, is never the world in which we grow old.
Read MoreI am sitting at my computer eating reduced-fat potato chips, using them to scoop up tuna fish once packed in water but now swimming in low-fat mayonnaise. And I am feeling smug and Spartan because there is no bread in my lunch, no yummy roll grilled in butter, no slice of white American cheese melted on top. There's 1 percent milk in my coffee and just a single cookie on my plate: my neighbor Katherine's homemade - without butter - almond biscotti. Ah, healthful eating.
Read MoreMy friend Rosemary is moving, packing up and downsizing. It's the American way. You scrimp and save to buy a house, spend a lifetime scraping and scrubbing, replacing and renovating, decorating and landscaping - and then you sell it. I wanted to say goodbye to Rosemary's big old house, stand in the foyer one last time, and breathe in the smells of old wood and new books and whatever was brewing in the kitchen. So I called and asked, "Can I come over?" But Rose said, "No. Richard and I are still packing."
Read MoreI met them for the first and only time eight years ago. I don't remember who invited me, but I remember the house where the meeting took place. There was a parlor connected to another parlor with big, comfortable chairs; then a bigger room, light and airy with a long banquet table dressed for a party.
Read More`Who is a senior?" My daughter e-mails this question and I read the words and think, "I don't know." Who is a senior? Not Kate. She's in college. And not Ellie. She's a freshman. Is this a trick? A test? Why is she asking me about seniors?
I e-mail her back a big question mark.
Read MoreI found it in a card shop in Concord, N.H. - Caardvark's, a place that is now closed. It was hanging on a wall and it was perfect.
I'd been looking for perfect. My daughter was newly engaged and I wanted something special to celebrate the moment. For this was my baby who was getting married, my youngest child leaving home not for a little while, not for college, or for a summer, or to test her wings. But to fly away - with someone else - forever.
Read MoreI like to believe that it's a lack of thought and not meanness that makes people use words that hurt. That they're going with the flow, following the crowd, saying what everyone else is saying with no intent to wound.
But words do wound.
Read More`It's Janet’s birthday," I tell the person who answers the phone, expecting her to say, "It is? I'm so glad you mentioned this." Or "I know. We're having a little party this afternoon." But she says, "Oh." She says it flat, without inflection, in a way that means "I don't care. What difference does it make? Why are you telling me?"
Read MoreBeverly Beckham
It sits on top of a hill, overlooking a busy road - a big, pink stucco house that dwarfs all the houses around it. It is conspicuous consumption at its worst, or at its best, depending on your point of view. It's not the biggest house around. There are many bigger - one just a few miles from where I live, perched not on top of a hill but practically on the offramp of a highway. So many smaller houses have been knocked down to make room for these…
Read MoreI am trying not to compare. Not stuffing. Not apple pie. Not last year with this year. Not table settings. Not houses. Not family rooms or family dynamics. Not anything.
Comparison, I've come to believe, is the eighth deadly sin.
I used to compare myself with Rosemary. We met in second grade. She had straight hair. Mine was curly. She wore skirts and sweaters. I wore frilly dresses. She had her very own kitchen drawer, which was filled with paper, books, paints and crayons. I had to keep my things in a toy box in my room.
Read MoreHis name was Barry, and he came to my house to install Comcast digital voice phone service, which I requested because my phone bill is huge, though not as huge as my cable bill, which is outrageous. It costs us a fortune to watch the TV that we used to watch for free.
Read MoreI will tell him tomorrow. I will pick up the phone and call his office and talk to his receptionist and say, "I have to cancel my appointment." And she will say, "When would you like to reschedule?" And I will say . . .
What will I say?
Read MoreI have it upstairs in a box somewhere, a piece of pink, lined paper filled with writing that's straight up and down. The penmanship struck me as exotic when I first saw it because it wasn't the Palmer Method. It was a combination of printing and art, the f's and g's and p's and q's big and bold and gaudy. The words the letters made were bold, too, because they held up a mirror to my life. This is who you are, the lady who penned them said.
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