Grief is like the ocean; it comes on waves ebbing and flowing. Sometimes the water is calm, and sometimes it is overwhelming. All we can do is learn to swim.” ~ Vicki Harrison When I go to the “big city” (in Meeker terms, that’s anything over 5,000 people), one of my[Read More…]

September is Suicide Prevention Awareness Month. Last year, an estimated 48,789 people died by suicide in the U.S., making suicide the 11th leading cause of death. Too many of us know what it is like to lose someone this way.  In the way of small towns, most of you know[Read More…]

When my kids were little, I repeated the story of the Little Red Hen several times a week. Usually, it was with barely controlled rage while standing in a room full of abandoned toys. Nowadays, I don’t have to reference the tale of community responsibility nearly as much. I mostly[Read More…]

Last Thursday, I squished into a bus seat with my fifth grader and one of his friends for a long, lonnnnnng bus ride to Trappers Lake. I have had terrible motion sickness ever since I became a mom (cool), and I was so happy I didn’t throw up that I[Read More…]

Did you know 1954 is as far from 1990 as 2026 is? When my husband mentioned this Monday night, I argued with him, even though the math does indeed math. Thirty-six years. I am sure those of you who are older and wiser have already caught whatever mysterious affliction it[Read More…]

I hibernated from technology this weekend. No phone. No apps. I spent the weekend like it was the “olden days,” which, according to my teenagers, is ye olde 1990s.I watched Tom Holland — not the actor, a cat spider named by my 10-year-old — in our kitchen window, shedding an[Read More…]

“Stories are for joining the past to the future. Stories are for those late hours in the night when you can’t remember how you got from where you were to where you are. Stories are for eternity, when memory is erased, when there is nothing left to remember except the[Read More…]

“What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others.” ~ Pericles (sorta)* When my brother died, one of my coping mechanisms (after 1. red wine and 2. blowing out the speakers in my minivan listening to very angry[Read More…]

“Life zips by and next thing you know, you’re laying in a hospital bed.” ~ Grandpa Sam I spent the last few days in St. Mary’s Hospital with my grandfather. In trying to maintain my sanity, I wrote quite a bit. I’m sharing some of those reflections here this week.[Read More…]

“Courage is being scared to death, and saddling up anyway.” ~ John Wayne Hoo boy, y’all. I keep saying I knew what I was getting myself into, and I thought, truly, that I did. I’ve been in and out of the newspaper office since I was 12 years old! Apparently,[Read More…]

“For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven.” ~ Ecclesiastes 3:1 I’ve kept a lot of plates spinning for a long time, through good times and bad, through sorrow and joy, through praise and criticism (sometimes all at once). Over the last 10 years[Read More…]

“Go back? No good at all! Go sideways? Impossible. Go forward? Only thing to do! On we go!” ~ The Hobbit When all this kicked off a few weeks back, I dreamed of composing an award-winning column that yanked heartstrings for my first official week as editor of the HT.[Read More…]