With a Full Heart

June 15 marks the anniversary of my mother’s death, more than 40 years since the last time I saw her wise, deep brown eyes, since I leaned in to kiss her cheek and smelled her favorite “Youth Dew,” and felt the grasp of her warm fingers. I was too young to believe she was really…

We are about to go on vacation, 10 days with dear friends on a European river cruise. Sounds idyllic, and I have no doubt that it will be just that. We will see new things, visit new places and, as we always do when we are together, laugh a lot. The trip is not the…

I have come to realize that, at my center, my decision making process as a leader, and as a person, is a simple one. Although I would never describe myself as as someone who sees things as “black and white,” rather than very many shades of gray, the question I always come back to is…

I’ve often thought about how not to die, thinking about unfinished business and lives cut too short. I’ve thought about losing people I loved long before their time and the terrible holes that their death left in so many lives, holes that will never be filled. In my mind, I think of the course of…

Yesterday we shopped at our local farmer’s market, one more stop on an afternoon jammed with errands. Filling my arms with our favorite fresh vegetables, happy to see this signs of spring and local produce, I stopped at a small basket filled with rhubarb. “Rhubarb!” I said aloud as I blinked away the tears that…

Last night, as people started posting Mother’s Day tributes, I was struck, as I always am, by how many of us have lost our moms. Some relatively recently and some, like me, so long ago. In fact, I realized, my mom has been gone from my life nearly twice as long as she was with…

Sitting in an airport waiting area, wondering why a flight scheduled for just before 7 a.m. on a Sunday morning could possibly be delayed by an hour by air traffic. I mean, seriously? But, as we know all too well when it comes to flying, we are, as I often say, no more than prisoner…

If you are not a pet person, not a dog or cat person, you may not understand the role that these fur babies play in other people’s lives. I didn’t for a long time. As a young child, pets were limited to goldfish. Time and again, my brother and I, with the best of intentions,…

An interesting question posed this week, in a room full of professional colleagues, as we were asked to reflect upon these words, “When was the last time you cried in front of someone else?” And then we were asked to share that answer with others. It’s a question that clearly triggers a lot for people,…