This still-dark morning, I startle awake, hearing Kayla pace from my bed to the door and back. Judging from her near-frantic pacing, I realize I’ve not been conscious of her usual sedate tempo that begins a normal day. Being forced to get up fast, find footwear, flip on the coffee machine, find a jacket, and ...

The heart is a muscle. It has four houses, called chambers — which in Greek or Latin refers to something with an arch over it, and in French refers to a private room. In these rooms, we supposedly keep our innermost secrets. Each chamber has a door, called valves, which on their best behavior neatly open and ...

I am at an age where I might forget what I was looking for in the garage, but I can still recite the Pledge of Allegiance and countless nursery rhymes. As a child, I read along, memorized and repeated over the years each of these “sweet” nursery rhymes without thinking about the horrors behind the words. I no...

In the coming year, I will turn 80 — a reality I sometimes find unfathomable. But given our national discourse, I find many of today’s realities unfathomable. What I find most troublesome however, is how I am coping with these realities. Among my circle of friends, concerns surrounding aging, death and dying ...

As young campers, we chanted one song ad nauseam. Since I only liked one version — about prey outsmarting predator — I’d often lead us in that one: There was an old man named Michael Finnegan. He went fishing with a pin again. Caught a fish but it flopped back in again. Poor old Michael Finnegan. Begin again....