He loved her. He loved everything about her. He loved her pink tutu. He loved the tiny little ballet shoes, the auburn hair cut just above her shoulder. And she loved him. I could tell by the way she clung to his leg as they stood in line.
“I don’t feel good daddy.” He put one hand on her head and looked down in concern before stooping to hug her.
“Okay,” he said, smoothing her hair back with one hand and feeling for a temperature. He kissed her forehead. “We won’t be …

My first job on a construction site in college wasn’t what I imagined it would be. Rather than strapping on a tool-belt and getting to work framing walls like I expected, I was handed a push-broom and shown where to dump the wood chips, the rubbish and the trash left behind by the carpenters, painters and crews as they moved through a house. At first I felt worthless, seeing myself as a glorified janitor. I mentioned that to one of the foremen one day at lunch. He thought for a …

90 degrees feels more like 120 when you’re sitting on a concrete median strip dividing a four-lane highway. Dion, slumped in his wheelchair, had an umbrella, but you could see the sweat rolling down his ebony skin from 30 feet away. His hand lettered cardboard sign said what I expected it to, “Homeless,” but there was more. I squinted. “Homeless but not helpless. Ice-cold bottle water $2.”
Next to him was a cooler and a coffee can on a stick. My car window was already down so I motioned to him, …

As a trainee on a volunteer ambulance service years ago, I went to a scene where a man had committed suicide. It was not my first or only suicide call, but it made a significant impression on me. The ability and necessity of emergency workers, reporters and others to respond to tragedy without getting emotionally engaged has always fascinated me. It may appear callous to the casual reader, but the depth and strength of emotion present runs deep. How any of us deal with death is personal - but for …

You have a story. We all have stories. How well we tell those stories depends on how willing we are to experience them in our own lives. If you worry about what someone will think, or feel, or say…you pull back. You eliminate a feeling, or impression, or thought. You begin writing or speaking to appear stronger, better, smarter or whatever to the audience that you’re anticipating. You quit being authentic.
Far too many people believe that “being authentic” means someone who agrees with our viewpoint, but being authentic means being …