For Hollis – who walked in Light As you know I’m on a quest. My goal has been to present, in total and online, each child’s loss story I was privileged to hear and then write. Though every interviewed parent has his or her own written copy, my website is for sharing – parents with other parents, parents with their larger family, and parents with others. Though A Patch of Blue is largely about the twenty children I wrote about over these past months, no child’s full story will

Stop! No! What am I hearing and seeing? Unbelievable! Dismayed, disgusted and despairing, I find I’m talking to myself a lot. What I understand as civility, respect, and common decency toward another are spiraling down into foul, ugly places that surprise me awake. The latest, confused and deeply disturbing upheavals, the rise of fear with two of its most destructive arms, anger and violence, plus the lack of healing rhetoric, initiative and influence from leaders across our