The social media posts show children with smiling little faces who are headed back to school. In their hands, they hold boards with their age, grade, school and teacher’s name. Some signs include their favorite color or food or what they might want to be...
“This is a present from a small, distant world…” -President Jimmy Carter When the two Voyager spacecraft launched into the unknown in 1977 with a mission to study the outer Solar System and interstellar space, each contained an identical phonograph record known as The Golden Record. Just...
After a few days full of MRIs, physical exams, EMGs and nerve conduction studies, my father-in-law met with the neurologist to go over his results. We had known something wasn't right, but on this day, there was a definitive answer to what was wrong. The neurologist gently told...
I sit down to write my blog in a small restaurant with only three tables inside. The walls are covered with signatures of unknown people who have visited over the years, like a giant visitor’s book. I pick up a black sharpie that’s in a...
When we were children, we used to think that when we grew up, we would no longer be vulnerable. But to grow up is to accept vulnerability…to be alive is to be vulnerable. -Madeleine L’Engle Scottish singer-songwriter Lewis Capaldi catapulted to fame with his chart-topping single “Someone...
The exam room was quiet as the nurse took my blood pressure during my annual physical. It was so quiet that I could hear the patient speaking in the next room. “I don’t want to talk about quitting smoking,” the man said angrily. “You should know...
“May I have a turn holding your balloons?” The little boy walking alongside the little girl in pigtails asks during the Independence Day parade. Contemplating the request, the little girl with pigtails clutches her three shiny red, white, and blue star-shaped helium balloons with a mix...
In the scorching heat of the Arizona summer, the swimming pool becomes the only place to find some relief. The girls spend their summer days immersed in playful activities like sharks and minnows, seeing how far they can get across the pool in one breath...
Joseph Fasano felt stuck. He was asked to give a talk to a group of 2nd-grade students in NewJersey on the art of poetry. He thought about reading some of his own poems and explainingpoetry structure and rhythm, but he wanted to make poetry relatable...
"I am a mosaic of everyone I have ever loved, even just for a heartbeat.” -Hannah Hassler We are a mixture of all the people we’ve ever known. Small and delicate reminders of those we've crossed paths with remain with us, sometimes long after they leave. I’m struck...