Tag Archives: loss of a child

The hubris of men knows no bounds. A naïve sense that we are masters of our own time and space.

We, the fortunate among us, think that our own life experience is some kind of normalized humanity and we behave as though this is how life has always been and how it always will be. We pay lip service to the suffering of the past and of others but find it difficult to imagine that we, ourselves, could experience such suffering—as though the suffering is some work of fiction wrought by authors of vivid imagination. Continue reading →

In every way, it seemed, my son’s life was returning to normal. He would call to chat from time to time, and report on his progress in school and he would talk about his plans for when he was done. He had been in touch with his cousin David, a former Marine who started his own business building oil derricks in West Texas. Continue reading →

I mentioned much earlier that when I was raising my children I tried to see the learning opportunity every situation presented. When you teach your children about music, about literature, about the world, about life, the learning transcends the content of the lesson. You are teaching them to learn. In my estimation it is unfortunate, though, that some lessons can only be learned as adults when they are beyond our daily influence.

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