“Oh no!” I gasped, in a crowded Rhode Island bar, as I watched six-foot-five Steelers’ quarterback Mason Rudolph drop like a rag doll after a helmet hit by Ravens safety Earl Thomas on Sunday, October 6th. The Twin Willows was the closest bar with an NFL package, so my husband, Francis, and I sat at…
9/11
Bawling Over the Navy Ball
“We’re going to be late,” my husband Francis began saying two hours before the Navy Ball. He would repeat the phrase every 15 minutes. It was October 1994, the night of my first formal military event as a Navy spouse. We had only been married one year, and I was four months pregnant. I sat…
Desperately Seeking Reunion
“C’mon, please go with me,” I begged Patti, “we’ll have fun, I promise.” But my best friend since 9th grade was skeptical. She thought our 35th high school reunion could be a bust. But she agreed to go, as long as we — our husbands, Patti and I — would make a speedy exit when…
Gold Star Mothers: Shining bright since WWI
When I was a teenager, I spent an inordinate amount of time staring out of windows, over the water, into the distance, up at the sky — pondering my place in the world. I was prone to feeling overwhelmed by minuscule problems, so contemplating the vastness of the universe comforted me by making my worldly…
Military Families Hit Harder by Inflation