By Jennifer Norstrom Silbert Exactly one year ago tonight, my brothers, their wives, and I were standing vigil over my dad’s hospice bed at my parents’ home in Wisconsin. We expected, but didn’t know for sure, that Dad wouldn’t make it through the night. His cancer had roared back into his life just three weeks […]
10 Tips for Living a Whole-Hearted Life (As taught by Brene Brown when she was my co-pilot)
At the end of last year as I drove over the river and through the woods to visit my grown daughter, Brene Brown taught me how to live a whole-hearted life. Because my friend Karen Haring—founder and executive director of Libera, Inc.—recommended more than once that I listen to Brown’s 6-cd audio recording of her […]
No Ordinary Joe (The backstory on the #2 guy in the Christmas story.)
She is dead to me. I tried to speak the words but instead I swallowed them, bitter as bile, moments after my mother delivered the news. “Sit,” she said when I entered the room for the midday meal. She pushed a cup—more wine than water—across the table. “Drink.” Parched from the morning’s work and wood dust, […]
Jacob Allen, Lost and Found: Miracles and Heroes in the Mountain State
Exceptional people live in every neighborhood, some of them miracles, some of them heroes. Jacob Allen and his parents, Jim and Karen, live near me in Morgantown. Jacob is the young man with autism, who at 18, was lost for four days in the Dolly Sods Wilderness of West Virginia back in October of 2007. […]
The Mountain of Rest (Guest Post by Rachel Ellis)
by Rachel Ellis “Certainly work is not always required of a man. There is such a thing as a sacred idleness, the cultivation of which is now fearfully neglected.” —George MacDonald I’ve always loved the mountains. Rugged strength, hues of monochromatic color towering deep into the skyline. There isn’t a thrill in the world like […]
