This is my first Mother’s Day without a mother. It’s indescribable.  During her illness I sent my eldest son to Minnesota for a visit and slipped this letter into his pocket to read on the plane. Dear Hank, Today you sit with your 90-year-old Grandmother, in a wheelchair with thinning hair and slipping faculties.  But, close your eyes for a moment and imagine her your age, with the world spread before her.  I think she would want to tell you a story, maybe the story of her life.  Evangeline Catherine Bonner, was born 1919 to Helena and David Bonner for whom you are named, Henry David, on a …

How did I get here?  OK, I know how I got here, as in the first of the Webster definitions of the word, “place or location.”  I crawled out the window and am on the roof.  But, if you go to the third of the meanings designated for here, “in the present life or state,” that’s where the ambiguities lie. There is a police officer asking me about the car in my driveway that was reported stolen; my sweet, elderly neighbor, whom my kids refer to as grandma Joan because she is forever the faithful stand-in on grandparents day, is hovering in the bushes, and I am on the roof holding a child’s shoe …

On my wedding day, I confidently wore my veil upside down. Just as confidently, I conducted an interview with astronaut Buzz Aldrin wearing my skirt inside out. The moms from my old hood still like to remind me of the day I wore my swim skirt backwards. By now donning  a black and navy-blue shoe combo has become passé.  These couture combinations are not by design defiant, just blissful ignorance.  It is, in fact, how I seem to wear my genes.  I take comfort knowing I come from a long line of wardrobe malfunctioners.  My kind, very prim and proper grandmother, who never had a hair out of …

The day I lost my mother I found my father.  I knew my father’s name and vitals; I sat within arm's reach of him at a dinner table for nearly two decades.  But he was a man of few words, very few words.  It was not unusual for a week to pass without me hearing him complete a sentence, which made his life as a politician, motorcycle enthusiast and crusader for social justice even more curious.  We were preparing for my mother’s funeral when I discovered a box marked Bill’s letters.  On that muggy Minnesota day in a 6-by-12-foot storage locker I felt I had begun to know my dad for the first …

I have an absurd photo of my son. He is 5 years old wearing a karate outfit, holding a trophy nearly half his size.  If he were some sort of child prodigy, a mini Bruce Lee, destined for martial arts greatness, the scene, perhaps, would make more sense.  The fact is, he got this piece of hardware for showing up. With three kids, our house was soon filling up with trophies for ... showing up to all sorts of things.  Sports, singing, cooking class and then there are the boxes of diplomas, one for each year of pre-school (that’s 6) and for graduating kindergarten. I don’t recall getting a trophy…

The morning began with tears over a dead worm. An unusual sight in our house, the tears. Not the worm, not the dead. It is a nightly tradition to forage for food in the form of bugs to feed amphibian life on our kitchen counter.  Live rolli pollies from under the rocks are the staple of the bullfrogs. The tadpoles eat any carcass that falls to the bottom of the tank.  Moths are a delicacy. Fireflies, we have found, are an entertaining aquatic light-show as their glow remains even when swallowed. The gecko dines on crickets and the occasional fly. In the category of “things I wish I didn’t …

OK, I’ll fess up right now. There was a time when I did not know a pawn from a piece of pasta. I used to think “checkmate” was how an Aussie asked for the bill. Even so, by a strange twist of fate, I have become a chess mom.  Like soccer moms or dance moms, chess moms cart kids around to events that dominate the weekends.  Still, chess is not much of a spectator sport. In fact, at the rated tournaments parents are not allowed in the room.  The only tournament I really enjoy is the unrated State Scholastic tournament held in Hartford every year. Because it is unrated the rules are different. …

“Is it today, Mom? Is it today?” From the moment we schedule our dog to volunteer with us at the local senior living residence, it is the only thing my 8-year-old son wants to talk about. Charlie and I volunteer often and we notice the only thing better than bringing a kid to visit the elderly is bringing a dog.  Soon the day is upon us. I approach it with trepidation.  You see, Lili, our 11-pound terrier mix, put the terror in the name terrier.  Her deeply ingrained instinct to herd sheep doesn’t translate so well with the human race. She considers anyone who steps on to our property her …

I opened the freezer and found a mango with a steak knife through the core.  It took me just moments to perform my own style of CSI and deduced “The Imposter” had struck again.  I know I am not alone in these strange, inexplicable occurrences, according to a 2003 UN survey 1 in 5 people are between the ages of 10 and 19, that’s 1.2 billion tweens and teens masquerading as adults. There is no doubt nature has a wonderful way of giving creatures adaptations for survival, Polar Bears are snowy white, whales have blubber,  puppies are cute or we wouldn’t put up with the poop. But I remain stumped…

My Aunt was an impossible person for which to buy.  She was a person who truly had everything.  The day she died I was handed all of her worldly possessions, they fit in a shoebox.  Inside was her mother’s rosary, some dried flowers, a few pictures and a decoupage plaque with the words "Today is the Day the Lord Hath Made, Rejoice and Be Glad."  She taught by example that money is imaginary, wealth is real.  Only you can acquire wealth and consequently, only you can lose it.  Twice a year my sisters and I would pile into the car with my mother and make the 500-mile trip to a convent in …

My sister always told me “God gives you the babies you are meant to have.” I never asked where she learned this for fear she had read it on a bathroom wall. This idea has anchored me many times over the years. When I share this with friends, whether they are believers in God or not, they always stop and ponder this wisdom. Then they say, “Yeah, you are probably right.” I think my sister first made this declaration on the day we three sisters could count six sons between us, no daughters. We, the women who were raised feminists in the 70s, had always shared our dreams of a different world for …