I haven’t gotten to the other side yet, but I’m almost there. I can almost taste it. The heaviness that had kept me in a sunken place is lifting. The joy that was promised in the morning blows past like the wind, and my soul dances as it did before. Although it hasn’t come to stay, I know it will one day soon. This getting to the other side is taking years, but it’s happening, and for that I’m grateful. The grief that has clung to me all these years, I want to ball it up and throw it far away...

A couple of weeks ago, I took a little trip to Fresno, California. Why Fresno? Well, I had never been there before, and, given who is running the FAA, the current administration, gas prices, and the fact that Fresno was only a couple of hundred miles from Victorville, off to Fresno we went. The trip was one I took with two other women whom I met decades ago while working for the Los Angeles Superior Court. We are all retired now; they are retired court reporters, while I’m a retired judicial...

Grandma, Grandma, Grandma…. I have heard my grandson call me "grandma" so many times that I can tell by the inflection of his voice whether he truly wants to speak with me, or if his mother or father has put him on the phone to say hello to his grandmother. However, on a Tuesday (a few weeks ago), my grandson was lying in the emergency room bed when I heard his voice over the phone say, “Grandma….” There was an unspoken fear that reverberated through the phone seventy-plus miles away to me....