The real woman's name is Andree de Jongh. I have been saying it over and over to make up for all the times I never said it, never knew it. I wouldn't know it now if Kristin Hannah hadn't written "The Nightingale," a work of historical fiction based on this woman's life about a world at war and what war does to people..

"You're making a big mistake," my father said some 20 years ago when I told him I was not going to renew my teaching certificate. He was angry, and he let me know it. We argued for days about my not wanting something I would never use. I was in my 40s and a long time out of college. And yet he was furious…

I saved the receipt. I stuck it in a gardening journal, which I began with vigor 10 years ago. I'd taken a course, and Kristen, the teacher, said we should all keep a gardening journal. So I did. For a while.

That first year, I cut and pasted pictures of every flower I planted. Little Leo Leopard's Bane. Osteospermum. Dunkle Schone Aster, which I described…

'When I'm 12, I'm going to be on Broadway in a play with Sutton Foster." This is what I love about children. They dream big.

Charlotte was 8 when she said this. She's 9 now and every bit as sure that Broadway is in her future. There's no "Maybe I'm not good enough" in her tone. No self-doubt. No looking outside of herself for affirmation. She is certain that if she tries hard..

He was always taking her picture. He could have photographed different things: the trees he planted to separate our yard from the neighbor's; the birds that nested in those trees; our dog, Buttons, whom he fed leftovers on the sly. He could have photographed the grotto my mother wanted, which he struggled to build on so many of his days off, or the cement patio he poured, where my best friend, Rosemary, and I left our handprints…

He thinks I know everything.

He calls and tells me he's doing a report for school. "What do people who work in coal mines die from, Mimi?" he asks.

"Lung disease. Black lung. Emphysema," I tell him.

"How do you spell emphysema?"

I spell it, and he says, "Thank you…

The clowns at Boston Children's Hospital are not garish, over-the-top, frightening-to-kids kind of clowns. They are from Boston, after all. There's a bit of Brahmin in these likable buffoons. They know how to woo, as well as wow.

And that's exactly what they do five days a week…

It doesn't have to be perfect. It just has to be done. That's what I've been telling myself these days. Give it a try. Do what you can. And if what you've done is a little short of excellent, if that photo of the moon is a blur, if that hibiscus you bought didn't thrive, if your gluten-free bread wouldn't win a prize, so what…

Jan Slepian is 95 and lives at Sunrise of Arlington, a senior living community. She is renowned for her children's and young adult books. She's written 28. An American Book Awards nominee, "The Alfred Summer" broke ground back in 1980 when it was published, the main character a 14-year-old boy with cerebral palsy who, with three friends…

Decades ago, when my husband was in Arizona with his work buddies, on a reward trip, a building-partnership trip, a "get out of Dodge it's winter here and perpetual summer there" trip, he called home the first night and announced, "It's raining."

"It's raining?" I said back. It hardly ever rains in Phoenix. Nearly 300 days…

It started last Sunday as the rain fell and fell, that closed-in feeling, that sense of foreboding, of "Oh, no, here it comes."

It's only rain, I said out loud, an incantation, really. It's rain, not snow. Be grateful.

And I was. Or tried to be. But last winter is still in the rearview mirror, with its mountains of snow, and impassable roads and sidewalks, and caved-in roofs, and ice dams, and no place to park the car, and endless, stormy days. And there's not enough…

I said, in December of 2014, as my husband and I were undecorating our house after it took weeks to get just so, as we were wrapping up Santas and Christmas plates, labeling snowmen and angels, packing away the creche, looking once again at all the photo cards I can't ever throw away, cards I store in a giant box in a closet and resurrect every December, that we should keep up the Christmas decorations all year long. Why not? They're bright and colorful. The tree is artificial. The garland is, too. Glitter and gold…

It’s noon on a late winter morning and I have already made breakfast, shoveled the driveway, interviewed a woman for a story, scrubbed the bathroom, answered emails, hand-written two thank you notes, and downloaded and edited photos for a video I’m presenting…

Traditions bring comfort. Family and friends together, raising a glass, breaking bread. Turkey. Mashed potatoes. Apple pie. Freedom. Traditions like Thanksgiving bring comfort amid reminders of the tenuousness of life.In this world, where nothing changes, where people are continually fighting and…