My dear son, It’s your birthday week. Another year without you on the planet has completed its cycle. And, as it most always does during this month, my heart aches with the wondering of what might have been. This year, though, I’m living through April with a message I took into my heart from a television show. I can feel you smiling; I suppose that might mean you were there, whispering in my ear, as that important “aha” hit home. Consider this both a birthday and thank you no

I signed into a monthly Zoom call that has become routine over this last year. There they were. . . women I have known well over a decade, women with whom I have shared heartbreak, successes, laughter, honesty and hope. On the screen looking back at me were a Karen and Caryl, a Jen, a couple of Nancys and a Jane. I fell happily into all the waving hellos as our reconnecting laughter led us into brief accounts of our separate lives. Joy was in the room . . . without being call

Wherever your mind goes, your energy flows. Anyone else spending time thinking of some personal storms brewing around you? I’m back in the grind of thinking too much about sad, worrisome, out-of-my-control stuff, and doing too little about the more serene and joyful in-my-control stuff. The last couple of weeks in my life unfolded with a variety of grief touchpoints that surprised and saddened me. My thoughts went to places I was almost sure I had left behind. It’s taken m