“Is it cheating if I pray to God now after so many years away, ignoring Him?” My precious friend had lived her life in pursuit of men’s love and theater’s success, sporadically but never permanently achieving both, and usually feeling more battered and confused than satisfied by it.

My son, my firstborn graduated high school yesterday. The awareness of letting go spent all our tears – probably a necessary catharsis. Yes, the little feisty boy who scaled every doorway and then pounced on us like a ninja is gone. Yes, I miss holding him on my lap and for a moment believing I was everything he needed.

No pain pierces me more than that of watching helplessly when a loved one is in agony like an unprotected nerve, it sends jolts of sharp shocks through my system, and everything inside me is in that primal, raw state of I must act! I must stop this. Now!