I am my sister’s keeper. Her guardian, her advocate, her ally and proudly, I am her best friend. Given her many disabilities I learned as a child that despite Lisa’s status as my older sister, she needed me to rise to be her protector. Our relationship has changed as we’ve watched life unfold but the … More I Love Her Better…Now That She’s Gone
I’ve written about the fun I had traveling as a study abroad student…. decades and decades ago. The story that some of you might be familiar with is the embarrassing tell-all about “Falling in Avignon” when I was part of a choral group which provided unexpected “entertainment” when I triggered a little chaos. That same … More The Disappearing Girl – Part I
I have a neighbor with whom I’ve bonded because she’s trying to get pregnant via in-vitro fertilization (IVF). As a cancer survivor, she and her husband haven’t been able to start a family without fertility intervention. She correctly guessed that as a single-mom, I must have had help to create my family. So she’s shared … More The Courage to Try
I love musing about the symbolism of rain and raindrops. I wrote about my sweet sister’s love of the B.J. Thomas song, “Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head” a while back. Lisa is one of the most courageous humans I know as she navigates complicated memories of love and loss – mixed-up recollections from her head … More Inspired by Raindrops
In this episode, I’m with my co-host, Dr. Vicki Atkinson, and we are talking about choice and my journey to parenthood. Following up on the question a pre-school teacher asked me about how I became a parent, I share the story of how I started a family as a single person. From the fertility clinic … More Episode 40: The Power of Choice with Wynne Leon
When my mom recently replied to me with a sentence starting, “You must understand,” my attention suddenly focused. Understanding my mom has always been harder for me than it was to relate to my dad. He and I shared the same big picture approach to life. Whereas my mom is so much more detail-oriented that … More The Courage to Ask Questions
I appreciate and admire my blogging friends who share their observations about people, whether in chance encounters doing everyday things or sweet reminiscences about home and hearth from days gone by. Examples? Ally Bean and slices of human nature at the grocery store; Deborah and a forested encounter with a woman wearing her favorite color … More Inspirations
My wife and I led our three kids, who were all relatively young at the time, off the crowded shuttle and walked quietly back to our hotel room. We were all exhausted. We had gotten to the resort theme park early in the morning and had spent the day, staying until the fireworks and laser … More Keeping joy simple
The phrase “bundles of joy” makes me think of bringing my kids home from the hospital. My mind zooms to that hot August afternoon when I walked out of the automatic doors of the hospital with Miss O strapped into the car carrier for the very first time. My mom pulled the car around and … More Bundle of Whose Joy?
The other day I had a moment where I was sitting out on my back steps in the sun. My kids and I had been gardening with my mom and I stopped for a moment to look at a splinter that had penetrated my gardening gloves and was embedded in my thumb. Of course, I … More A Brief Moment in Time
The Heart of the Matter 