Happiness is Fleeting

I've learned a lot of lessons in my life. One of the biggest lessons is that Happiness is fleeting. If you find it, hold on to it and enjoy it because it doesn't last. I'm not saying that to be a dream squasher, I'm just saying that because it's true. I go through most of...

Who Am I?

I've always enjoyed this time of year because it brings with it cooler weather and holidays that always meant lots of family time and fun. No matter what happened throughout the year, the fall made everything better and it brought great joy. Now, with so many family members no longer here, it seems those days...

That Was Then. This Is Now.

Fall is my favorite time of the year. Once the cool weather arrives, I feel re-energized. It has been like this as far back as I can remember. I always looked forward to the cool weather, the changing of the colors of the leaves, the holidays and the celebrations that came with the season. My...

When neither choice sits well with your conscience.

Welcome to politics.   It's routine for the Wednesday morning post-election armchair political experts to sit back and tell us what we did wrong with our vote, and that's their right, but based on my own experiences, too often these days there is no "great" choice. We sort through the crap, vote our conscience and...

The People We Meet II

I was sitting at a friend's auto mechanic shop recently, waiting for his guys to take a look at my car. Knowing it would be a while, I took a seat in the waiting room with two ladies who appeared to have been waiting for some time as well. I am not the type of...

The things that come to mind.

When I was growing up, mom and I went at it all the time. She once told me it was because we were so much alike, she wanted me to do some things differently than she did. When I was in my 20s she apologized for any hell she put me through. Well, of course...

Advocating for your aging parent’s health shouldn’t have to be a fight with the system.

I was going through some of my notes from mom's hospitalizations that took place after her fall in a grocery store in November 2014. I came across a letter I'd written to the corporation that owned mom's rehabilitation facility. Though this happened nearly eight years ago, and mom's been gone almost three years now, I...

Digging in the Dirt

It has been a while since I have written anything. It is not that I have not wanted to write or not had ideas; it is just that after the disaster that was the year 2020 and all the pain it managed to inflict upon my life and the lives of others, I lost my...

Time stands still for no one

One year after a life-changing experience, it still feels like yesterday. The year is half over and it's hard to believe that this week marks one year since COVID changed my life. It feels like only yesterday. It was a Friday; mom was just ending her second week in the hospital, and I was with...

In Memory of Bambi, My Faithful Companion

By Naomi Hersh Clackum, July 16, 1988 (More bits and pieces of mom's writing found while going through her things) Though some would say you are only a dog, you are more, and so I speak on your behalf. You came to us as a pup and in the nine short years that you lived,...