“Mom, there’s something I have to tell you,” Ula’s eyes were wide with distress as she kneeled at her kitchen chair.  I had made her shredded zucchini with a marinara meat sauce, one of her favorite August meals.  She wasn’t touching it.  That worried me.   “What is it sweetie?”  I reached over and […]

Our family doesn’t spend a lot of time on current events.  There is no television service; it is nearly impossible to listen to the radio amidst the din of kids and dogs; none of us could find the time to sit still long enough to read a newspaper before it was needed to light the […]

Ula was setting out knives and forks for lunch when I took the phone call from the graduate student.  Time zone differences had required that we schedule this midday hour to speak, thus I had no choice but to drain the juices off the meatloaf and make gravy while we were on the phone.  She […]

The snow still lay thick on the ground outside the window one March morning a few weeks ago as Saoirse struggled over her math lesson. Customarily quick to pick up on each progressive step in the syllabus, on that particular morning, her brain had a mental block on decimals. The muscles on her face were […]