The Christmas season reminds us to be generous. Folks everywhere, religious or not, stock food pantries, collect warm coats and donate to charities. How about those who struggle with mental illness, which is one in five adults, according to the National Institute of Mental Health. Extra kindness can make a difference. So much mental suffering […]
The heroes of Thanksgiving are the family cooks. They chop, slice, dice and roast. Like mathematicians, they figure out how to stagger five roasting pans over eight hours using one oven. They make it look so easy, greeting guests with a breezy, “Come on in!” even as they tick off a mental to-do list with […]
(Photo by Suzette Martinez Standring, Houghton’s Pond, Milton, MA) Thanksgiving celebrates togetherness and family feasting, and perhaps, it also calls for restraint. I am not talking about the groaning buffet and ten desserts. I am talking about not talking about hot button issues. Live for the greater good and show mercy to the poor cook […]
(Photo: Suzette Standring with granddaughter Lulu at The Cahoon Museum of Art in Cotuit, Cape Cod, MA) I’m a senior with benefits, very different from “friends with benefits.” Turning 65 is a loaded baked potato: retirement, social security, Medicare, all slathered in anti-aging creams, and sprinkled with AAA senior discounts. What just happened? One minute […]
March 24, 2019 David’s in the hospital. He fell off a ladder in Falmouth trying to clean the roof of our home. Eight feet up, he was trying to scrape lichen off the roof when the ladder slipped back. He fell face first, his nose hitting the rung of the ladder, leaving multiple facial fractures. […]