by Jody | Family, Human Comedy, Human Condition
“The Welsh are dark.” That phrase has been spoken and followed by knowing nods in our family — when there were still heads to nod — for many years. My father’s mother, our paternal grandmother, had dimmed the light in her eyes by the time...
by Jody | Family, Human Comedy, Human Condition
On the day I was to start kindergarten, I woke up with the mumps. On the day I was to start kindergarten, my father woke up with them, too. I was sick, to be sure. But he was REALLY sick, and my mother called the doctor, who arrived in a flurry of concern and...
by Jody | Family, Human Condition
As a mother, I have discovered that there are few tasks any more difficult than finding words for another mother who has lost her child. The respective ages of the mother, or of her child, do not matter. For any woman who has both brought a baby into the world, and...
by Jody | Arizona Life, Family, Human Condition
It’s Christmas time, and during an ordinary year — regardless of how rough a year may have been — I put up the Christmas tree. Much is written — probably too much — about how meaningful it is to relive memories as ornaments are unwrapped...
by Jody | Family, Human Condition
Eggs were a serious matter to my grandmother. She had strong opinions about what color the yolks should be, how the whites should perform, and how they should “set up.” She was famous for her angel food cakes, and even had a small side business baking them...
by Jody | Family, Human Comedy
Thirty years ago, I was in Danville, Indiana getting ready to be married for the second time. It was going to be a small event, because I had been divorced some years earlier, and my parents wanted to keep everything discreet. David and I didn’t mind, because...
