Marta stood up and stretched. Her back ached from hours of hunching over her desk. Late nights like these, she needed to remind herself again why it was she suffered the crowded bus rides, the tiny efficiency apartment, and the boring classes of community college.

It had all started with paper dolls.

Paper dolls were figures cut out of paper or thin ( Read more... )

She’d met him on the bus.

He was so handsome in his uniform and he smiled at her and offered her his seat. He stood up and their eyes met for an instant and Marta fell in love, just like that. She wondered if he felt it too. She looked back and smiled at him as she got off at her stop.

Marta had moved to town to attend college in preparation for a ( Read more... )

I couldn’t resist checking the news on television this morning. I heard updates on the Colorado fires and the damaging storms and power outages in the Midwest and Mid-Atlantic states. There was no mention of any airport bombings or plane disasters. Thank goodness!

Only twenty four hours ago I was sitting in JFK waiting for my connecting flight to ( Read more... )

There comes a time when a young girl needs to take a stand against the better judgment of her parents.

As parents we understand that our children are really just on loan to us. We have a responsibility to love and protect them; to teach them skills to become responsible citizens and prepare them for a reasonably happy life. We also hope that each ( Read more... )

It must be spring because here I am on my knees in the dirt again ( Read more... )

Back in the 1980’s, working as an RN at a small community hospital I was friends with several other nurses on staff. We and our husbands use to get together pretty regularly on Saturday evenings for some inexpensive entertainment ( Read more... )

My six year old grandson was reading one of his story books about dinosaurs, dragons and other reptilian creatures when he pointed to an unfamiliar word and said,

“Grammy, what does l-e-v-i-a-t-h-a-n spell?”

“Oh, that word is leviathan, honey.”

“Well, what does it mean?”

“It is like a sea monster or some huge beast that rises from the deep.”
In your ( Read more... )

My Junior year in nursing school found me away from home for the longest period in my life up to that point. It was one of the most challenging yet rewarding times that I remember.

My home hospital did not have an adequate patient population in some areas to serve for all instruction required for the School of Nursing. In those days, in order to ( Read more... )

It was a cool October evening. I needed to run the heater in my little white ‘82 Chevette while driving home from a school reunion dinner about 9:30 at night. The sky was pitch black dark with no moon. I had just crossed the only lighted intersection on the back country road and was on the final couple miles to my house.

I hadn’t seen one other car ( Read more... )

When I graduated from high school I wanted to study Art. My mother said she couldn’t afford Art School or college but she could afford Nursing School so that’s what I had to do. It was imperative that I get an education that would allow me to find a job and take care of myself. Having known how tough it was for my mother to raise two daughters when ( Read more... )