Coping with crushed minds
/The Boston Herald
May 3, 1996
The Down syndrome conversation we should be having
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After YouTuber Jesse Ridgway announced he and his wife terminated a pregnancy because of a Down syndrome diagnosis, I found myself thinking about the love and joy that often go unmentioned.
Read MoreWe are living in a disconnected world
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The woman wasn’t exactly shouting. But she was loud. Halfway across a room buffered by soft music and full of people who were chatting and laughing and clinking coffee cups, you could hear her anger.
Her internet wasn’t working and she was sick of it, sick of having to log in every day and not getting in! Sick of beginning every morning of her vacation having to deal with this!
Read MoreWhat else is drifting away from us besides the moon?
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“The moon is slowly drifting away from us.”
I am at my desk reading this in “Interesting Facts,” an e-mail that pops up in my news feed every morning. I’m a sucker for interesting facts. I copy and paste the best of them into my notes because as interesting as a fact may be (100 lightning strikes hit the Earth’s surface every second!), I forget it minutes after I’ve sworn I’ll remember it forever.
Read MoreThe sobering reality: We must get off this road of destruction
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It’s easy to dismiss statistics. Statistics are numbers. Not people.
But the numbers are jaw dropping.
An estimated 42,915 people around the country died in motor vehicle traffic crashes in 2021, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. That’s nearly 43,000 ordinary people driving to work or home, to school, to a store, to a friend’s.
Think about this: In the nearly 20 years the United States was fighting in Vietnam, fewer Americans were killed in action (40,934) than were killed on our roads last year.
Read MoreOur entire country has become a war zone
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I cannot pronounce Luhansk and Lysychansk, because I have stopped watching television news. And because I no longer hear these names spoken, I don’t know how to say them.
I stopped watching the news every night because it is all calamity and conjecture interrupted by ads paid for by pharmaceutical companies, which would go bankrupt if, tomorrow morning, we all woke up well. And because the nightly news teaches me nothing I can’t learn by reading, I switched to print months ago.
Read MoreManners cost nothing, so why are people stingy with respect?
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My glasses were dirty, they’re always dirty, and I was in a parking lot rummaging around in my ridiculously giant pocketbook for the little blue microfiber cloth, which should be where it belongs in the zipper part of my bag, but never is. That’s when my uncle, whom I went to visit last week in Florida and whose car I was driving, handed me a handkerchief.
He pulled it out of his pants’ pocket and smiled.
“You have a handkerchief?” I asked, as surprised as if he had pulled a coin out of his ear.
“I always carry a handkerchief,” he said. “I put a fresh one in my pocket every day.”
Read MoreHow is it we have fallen to this level of disrespect?
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Before I was an adult, I never heard my father swear. Not even damn or hell.
I’m sure he knew his share of curse words but he didn’t use profanity around me. Nobody I knew did except for my friend’s mother who said things like, “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, give me patience,” and “Sweet God in Heaven, don’t make me have to come upstairs and get you,” which she claimed were prayers of intercession, not curse words. And my Uncle Frank, whom my aunt started to date when I was around 8, and whose language was salty because, my father explained, “Frank is in the Coast Guard,” leaving me to believe that the sea, which to me was Nantasket Beach, was as full of colorful words swimming about as it was of fish.
Read MoreAs the endless days drift by, who can remember a thing?
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My brain is acting out. It is in high dudgeon. I say “Help,” and it says “No.” I say “Please,” and it slams a door. I put a stick of butter in the microwave to soften and then forget to add it to the blueberry muffins. I decide to take a walk and then walk in and out of my house a half dozen times because I forget first my scarf, then my AirPods, then my phone, my glasses, my mask, a tissue, hand sanitizer. If I didn’t forget so much, if I weren’t always searching for things, my Fitbit would have nothing to record.
Read MoreWith more questions than answers, I wonder who to believe
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July arrives this week. July. Impossible. March April May June That’s how long we have spent inside obeying the rules. Having our groceries delivered. Washing doorknobs. Disinfecting counters and floors and packages. Staying 6 feet apart from anyone not under our roof. Staying 6 feet apart even from the people we love…
Read MoreWith the world upside down, I’m learning grace from my grandchildren
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Charlotte has been home from school for two months now, shut in with adults and her 16-year-old brother. She turned 13 last month. A big birthday, 13. Her mother sent out an e-mail to family and friends. Let’s have a surprise drive-by parade! It rained on her birthday. But Charlotte didn’t care. She woke to balloons and cake and presents and hugs and smiles and Happy Birthday signs strung everywhere. Outside was raw and ugly but inside was just about perfect…
Read MoreEvery School Shooting Must Be Shocking to Us
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If you look at statistics, you can convince yourself it isn’t so bad. What’s the chance of a child getting shot and killed at school? It’s less than getting hit by lightning. It’s less than being kidnapped. It’s less than dying in a car crash. So the numbers are with us, right? But it doesn’t feel right. And every time there’s another shooting, every time another child is murdered, it feels terribly, terribly wrong…
Read MoreWhen Joy Triumphs over Our Worst Fears
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My granddaughter Lucy was born in June 2003, not so long ago, but it was before Facebook, before World Down Syndrome Day, before companies hired models with Down syndrome, before the TV show “Born This Way,” before Google was a verb making it easy for people to network and learn. Lucy was seven hours old when a doctor, who didn’t identify himself as a doctor, walked into my daughter’s hospital room, unswaddled Lucy and announced…
Read MoreYearning to Believe in Our Goodness
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What I want to believe is that people are good, that when push comes to shove, even strangers have your back. Because, really, they do. How many times has each of us been helped by someone else?
“Have a seat.” “What can I get you?” A hug. A ride…
Read MoreHoping for a Therapy Dog to Stay by Bella’s Side
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There is no cure for Rett syndrome. Nor is there an A, followed by B, followed by C, predictable, sequential decline. The genetic neurodevelopmental disorder is unpredictable and fierce. Bella Rutko is one of its victims. She’s 9 years old…
Read MoreWhen Trickle-Down Effect of Disrespect Becomes a Flood
/It is early afternoon on a weekday and Katherine and I are leaving the Red Wing in Walpole after enjoying a heaping plate full of fried scallops and clams, which the restaurant cooks to perfection. Katherine, who is 90 and blind…
Read MoreQuotes touch our hearts and help our spirits heal
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It’s late on a Sunday night, almost Monday morning, and I am on my iPad googling Glennon Doyle Melton. My daughter Julie told me to read Melton’s book, “Love Warrior, A Memoir” two years ago. Sunday, I finally got around to it. I read it in a day. And at the end of the day, I wanted more…
Read MoreKids These Days — Well, Actually, They Get Involved
/I'm starting with Jenny Wolicki because she is the reason I began to notice all the good and selfless things that young people do…
Read MoreOpening My Eyes to a Nazi Cruelty
/Lebensborn. It means "Fountain of Life" or "Spring of Life," and was a Nazi program designed by the Heinrich Himmler, the head of the German Gestapo and SS, to create a master Aryan race. It's a word that I had to look up…
Read MoreSome Thing Better Left UnGoogled
/Yesterday, bright and early, while still on my first cup of coffee, my daughter Julie forwarded me an article about sponges. "You Should Throw Away Your Germy Kitchen Sponge Immediately," I read along with the cheery fact that…
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