On Thursday morning Jimmy and I brought our youngest daughter to the airport, she was headed off to Orlando to play lacrosse. Although she had traveled alone a number of times to compete, this time felt different. I could not help but feel aware of things to come, it was as if the future — our […]
Losing Ellie
Losing Ellie, my husband’s mother, was one of the most difficult things our family has experienced. Nothing, and I mean nothing, could have prepared us for her unexpected loss of life. What I have found is emotions stay. They don’t remain at the surface the way dried blood does as a scab to the skin. No, emotional wounds are different. All that […]
Veterans Day: My Mother the WASP
In December of 1943 my mother, who then went by, Elinor Fairchild, received a letter from Jaqueline Cochran, Director of Women Pilots of The War Department, letting her know that it looked as if they would have room for Elinor in the next WASP training class slated to begin, January 9, 1944. I can almost […]
Shepherding death; letting go of my mother
It was the sort of awakening that occurs when a phone’s ring interrupts a deep sleep–the kind that if needed, propels one into motion, only there was no phone ringing, I simply felt called. Less than 20 minutes later I was checking in with the night security guard at the hospital, as he handed […]
