The caregivers dilemma — “Hi Mary, I need to place another grocery order.” “So soon? We just ordered two days ago.” “No, that’s not possible. I’m completely out of food.” I repeat this phone conversation with my memory-addled mom regularly. Caregiving for a parent with dementia over the phone is like living in a…

Forget Thanksgiving, I’m Going to Portugal — After over three decades of cooking a big Thanksgiving dinner, I’m skipping it this year. Come the early hours of the fourth Thursday in November I’m stuffing a suitcase instead of a turkey and flying to Portugal. Google “reasons not to cook Thanksgiving dinner this year” or “reasons not to…

It’s surprisingly easy. — I ran into an old friend this weekend. Hadn’t seen her in years. We did the obligatory “So, what are all your kids up to these days” kind of catch-up. “And what about your son?” she asked as I finished bullet-pointing children one and two’s accomplishments. “She’s a daughter now.” …

I’m sorry fellow students of second-period US Government at J. F. Kennedy High School — The trouble started in Computer Science class. It was the mid 80s, Reagan was president, and I did my homework on a top-of-the-line, first-of-its-kind Apple Macintosh 128K personal computer. The course was brand new for our school, the textbooks were still on back order and there were only two computers…

This story has both a happy ending and a sad one. — They will know we are Christians by our love, by our love. Yes, they’ll know we are Christians by our love. — Popular Christian song written by Father Peter Scholtes Lately, most evangelical Christian churches don’t feel very loving. At least not if you are LGBTQ+ or any kind of…

I’m twisting this to my advantage — There are a few topics of conversation Mom brings up over and over: the weather, the Psalms, and other people's failing memory. “It’s so sad. I just don’t know how I would cope if I had dementia.” I can answer that question for you Mom. Not well. I know because…

Back in the glory days of mixtapes — Nothing, not even returning to the gorgeous body I inhabited at age 16, would convince me to start life over as a high schooler again. Apart from physical aging which truly sucks, each decade of my life so far has been better than the one before. But the music of…

Can it be done even from an ocean away? — “Let me hold on to your money so you don’t lose it,” Mom takes the coins out of my hand and slips them into her purse. “I’ll give it back as soon as you’re ready to spend it.” Five decades later I’m saying the same thing to her. Is this…

Just like breaking up with my first boyfriend — As Ronald Reagan famously said, I didn’t leave Twitter. Twitter left me. Twitter is no more. Poof. Gone. X’d out of existence by a capricious bazillionaire. I quit cold turkey the day the little blue bird was replaced with a black X. It was the final proof I needed there…