Grief – A Personal Journey By Donna L Scrafano My first exposure to grief came on December 3, 1963. That was the day I had lost my maternal grandmother, twenty-three days before my tenth birthday. I was in fifth grade. Eleven days previously on November 22, the nun who taught us at St. Anthony’s parochial Read more
Who Do You Throw Off the Boat? By Lucy E.M. Black Years ago, I taught a management course that worked towards the development of leadership skills using a variety of strategies that emphasized trust, collaborative decision-making, and survival skills. One of the activities was the now-familiar “lifeboat exercise.” The premise was deceptively simple: you are Read more
I invited Mom over for dinner to see our new house. Mom has also recently moved to be closer to me. After spending her entire adult life in Upstate New York, she uprooted and moved to be near her beloved daughter. Well, actually, I think she moved so I could help take care of her, but that’s for another story... “What are you doing? It looks fine.” my husband comments seeming perplexed. “It’s my mother. She’s going to find everything wrong, so I want to minimalize her menu of items to choose from” I gently explain. Although, I’m fairly certain he already knows this. It wasn’t his first rodeo with Mom. Read more
The Etiquette of Technology by Johanne R. Deschamps The pace of our world today has set the stage for more dependence on technology. Cell phones, tablets, laptops, and accessibility to the internet and social media are certainly invaluable tools. Unfortunately, like most things in life, they can cause problems when misused or abused. Texting and Read more
Loves Language: A Love Story By Lucy E.M. Black In Gary Chapman’s book, The 5 Love Languages, he posits a theory that each of us has a natural inclination to express and receive love and affection in a particular way. He calls each of these five expressions a love language. The five languages include: physical Read more
Ms. Pac-Man: A Love Story by Peter Kravitz On my second date with Jennifer, in 1982, I defeated her in the arcade game Ms. Pac-Man. “That wasn’t fair,” she said. “Why?” I asked. “You practiced.” On our first date she had dexterously worked the lever and avoided the little monsters that gobble you up, leading Read more
Serendipity: A Love Story By Alice Adams Our eyes first met when neither of us was looking. I was sitting on my friend’s Ursula’s living room floor. We were surrounded by papers. Ursula was doing post-grad work for another law degree. I was editing her paper on “The Polluter Pays Principle.” We had been working Read more
Safe Haven Written by Bradley A. Huebner Grandparents play protector with their dust-free houses, piping-hot pies and uplifting life lessons. They provide a safe haven for grandchildren. For a grandkid reared in a dysfunctional home, that escape can mean everything. Mamaga lived over the bridge and through the woods on acres of wilderness nestled just Read more
Reading Aloud to Seniors: Top 10 Tips by Lucy E.M. Black Several years ago, when a family member was hospitalized and in a great deal of pain, I was striving to find something that would comfort her. In desperation, I picked up a Gideon Bible and began to read aloud from the Psalms. Occasionally she Read more
Oral Sex: Is it Better to Give or Receive? Tracy E. Hill, Ph.D. With funding from the National Institute on Aging, researchers from Michigan State and Texas A & M Universities took a deep dive into oral sex. Published in the Journals of Gerontology: Social Sciences (2019), Drs. Hui Liu, Shannon Shen, and Ning Hsieh investigated how giving Read more
