from Passing Showers Too

"Passing Showers Too is a collection of past favorites and recent columns that often place us right in the middle of life's contradictions. For it is here where we find our challenges. Here where we make our choices. Here where we find out who we really are."                            from  Foreword

"Earlier that evening, I had gone out walking. I was hoping that the call I had been dreading all week would come when I wasn't at home. So I wouldn't have to hear the news.

And when I was out walking, I suddenly realized: Never again would my dad call me up and say, "Hey there, Plum, this is your old Dad."  from "The Plum Story"

"I waded out into the middle of the river. Then I stopped. A lone hawk was soaring overhead, and it was all so very, very quiet. So quiet and peaceful that I could almost hear the green hills rising on either side of me. The clear blue sky unfolding above me. The dazzling sun shining down upon me." from "My River in Autumn"
                                                                   

"I thought about taking my shirt off once I was out of their sight. That's how I always rode my bike on hot summer days before. But suddenly, it didn't feel right. Something about me had changed. From this day forward, I was only a girl."
from "The Last Days of Going Topless"

"When she leaves the classroom at the end of the day, she is still whispering the star poem. Her name is Deidra, which means "sorrowful wanderer."

Tonight, if the Mississippi skies are clear enough, Deidra will be out wishing on the first star she sees. If the stars stay hidden, she'll be wishing on the ones in a little poem that are shining within her very own self."  from "First Star She Sees Tonight"

"She was sitting behind me in religion class," he said, his words as soft as smoke. "Her father was the pilot of the plane that crashed into the Tower. They called her into the hallway. Then she screamed. I've never heard anything that sounded like that before."   from "The Silence of 9/11"