After a few years of this, it occurred to me that maybe Vern thought Jesus was getting tortured and crucified every year—and rising from the dead every year.

What’s in a name? Something very important, it seems.

We have shared this story over the years, labeling it as the most curious gift ever sent to missionaries.

On a foggy summer morning, I woke with the word Go in mind.

As I write this, Jack is dying in the hospice wing on the third floor of a nursing home in town.

Aunt Dorothy loved me. There was no doubt about that.

Neither of us knew her

It was almost magical how it filled up again and again, week after week.

That evening I was miserable. The eye was throbbing with pain as the anesthesia slowly wore off. I couldn’t sleep.

We followed the coffin, and then I sat in one of the chairs next to the coffin.

He pointed to a chair and told me he’d have my watch fixed in a couple minutes if I wanted to wait.

I wasn’t only uncomfortable. I was blessed and challenged.

I take off my metaphorical glasses so I can’t see the problem areas in my life and the world around me.

It wasn’t until later, after my encounter with the letter carrier and when I looked up the lyrics, that I realized I did get the words wrong.

Her face is written with pain and uncertainty as the doctor brings more pills.

Over dinner she said, “Neither of us is Christian, but we wondered if you could do our wedding anyway and take out all the religious stuff?”

“a prism of leaves drift in cool air / whirling dervishes on their way down”

You are brave, and your spirit endures.

A poem about a bittersweet memory.

A poem for these troubled times.

Today I am thankful and have to give praise for time and the timeless and the shortness of days …

After 54 years of zestful living, the remainder of my brother’s life was now defined by this sentence.

A poem of suffering.