The breeze swirls about my face as I peer out towards the space where the thin blue lines meet on the hori­zon. The water is de­ceivingly calm now. From my painted Adirondack perch, I can hear the lapping of the water and crest­ing of the waves, and the sounds of children laughing as they buried one another in the sand. I welcome the sun from my favorite pier off the Galveston Seawall, and I think about how dif­fer­ent things were a month ago.

Many of you know that I’m not originally from …

It’s late, and I’m working on my column. My husband, Daniel, has just retired to bed, so I step away to perform my ritual “security sweep.”

I check the locks and the deadbolts on the doors. I turn on the security alarm, check the exterior flood lights, and turn off extraneous indoor lights. I think to myself, “How can he sleep like a rock behind an unlocked door? I can’t even type another word in my column, much less go to sleep!” 

I’m hard-wired that way; I’ve always felt the need …

It was February 1971, and Estelle Prather, wife of Edwin Prather, mother of two, and small business owner, was by Ed’s bedside in Houston, Texas. Earlier that year, they had left their business and children to others and made the five-hour trip to check Ed into the best cardiac hospital in the state. For weeks, a Houston hospital room was their home.

Cardiologists had found a previously undiagnosed heart murmur. With two leaves of his heart completely deteriorated and one leaf deformed, Ed was in bad shape. The good news was that …

We live in a world today where everything is “on-demand.” We have television apps that show movies anytime we want to see them. We carry hand-held computers that can answer our every query while making an overseas call. Services exist to deliver anything we want at any hour, and we can even pay our bills while in the comfort of our living rooms.

Amidst all this “on-demand” life, it’s difficult for people to understand why they can’t do more for my husband Daniel’s smoldering myeloma. Well-meaning people look at me quizzically as …

I remember it like it was yesterday. I was 13 years old, and sitting in my 7^th grade math class behind a popular girl with perfect hair. The lesson was on a topic that would have served me better in years to come, but I couldn’t hear it because I was distracted by the perfectly-feathered person sitting in front of me.

Why was this girl so popular? Was it her hair? Her cool, acid-washed jean jacket? Her perfectly scrunched leg warmers? I just didn’t get it. There was some­thing about her that made her …

It was a usual Sunday. We were in the early service, and I can tell you that I needed more than a bit of caffeine, when all of a sudden the minister asked, “Are you the same person that you were five years ago?”

“Wow,” I thought, “I’m not sure,” as I became lost in the recesses of my mind.

You might think that the answer to question is a simple one. You’ve had the same blood type since birth, for example. You have the same eye color. If you were …

As the song says, “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year,” and I agree.

Lights are going up all over the neighborhood, and holiday decorations are making their annual appearance. Children wait anxiously to find out if they were on the naughty or nice list, and adults cozy themselves by warm fires.

Many Christmases have come and gone for me, but certain truths remain the same, and so I thought I’d share what I know about the holidays with you:

Truth #1: Made-for-television holiday movies always have happy endings.

Truth #2: Having …