I wonder if people enmeshed in palliative care become desensitized to death the way those of us who work in human rights do after we’ve seen so many awful things humans tend to do to one another. Our fights for justice, I think, are sometimes one step removed from the human face of it, because […]
Tag: grandfather
Story Collecting from New Orleans to Denver and Beyond
I’ve been out in Denver for work. Before that I was in New Orleans. I work in fundraising, and my job mostly consists of meeting people and hearing their stories. I don’t think it was ever intentional, but these last several years collecting and cherishing the most heartfelt human stories from the people I’ve met […]
Family, against all odds
I had a friend in college who once said to me that, though he considered himself an atheist, he wanted so badly to believe there was something, anything out there watching over us with tender love and care. He just couldn’t. I was always struck by this because I felt the exact opposite: whereas he […]
St. Simons and Seashells by the Seashore
On the coast of St. Simons Island in the Golden Isles of southern Georgia, you’ll find Spanish moss dangling off the branches of the old oak trees, dolphins and manatees gliding about in the waters as the sun rises, and a rich history tied to John and Charles Wesley, two brothers who both spent time […]
To Cherish What’s Old
I like old things. Sometimes I like to think maybe it’s because I inherited all my grandfather’s old war stuff, but the truth is, I’ve always loved what’s old: an antique store with everything under the sun in it or the smell of old paper bound to a book of poetry or walking around in […]
Remembering.
A year ago today, my grandfather died. A year ago, everything sort of set in motion, and if you’d told me then that I’d be here, in Morocco, where my grandfather lived for nineteen months, well, I wouldn’t have believed that. But as it were, next Tuesday, I will have lived in this country for […]
Deciding to be Happy Already.
I’m not one to tout karma, but last year when load after load of bad news kept coming my way from my grandfather dying to multiple graduate school rejections, I felt like something good was destined to happen. I even felt like I deserved it. After all, I’d hit rock bottom, and it was past […]
A Legacy of Service, or Why Morocco Mattered to Me Before This
Morocco was, strangely, my first choice, among Peace Corps countries I could serve. I say “strangely” because as I dreamed about Pacific Islands or Guatemalan potholes to hell (my dear friend Maria really wanted me to go to Guatemala), Morocco was never a serious consideration. I mean, I certainly mentioned it in one of my […]
