love heals

Love Heals Every Body

One of my professors has a cynical view of love and healing, as if the power of love for emotional renewal is magical thinking. I thoroughly disagree. Love is the very best medicine we have. Some of us need manufactured drugs, and I take a fistful of vitamin supplements in the morning along with a
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Big Love

My mother’s love was big. Rita was the parent waving wildly from the audience with a toothy smile. In high school I messed up my solo in Oklahoma when I saw her arms fanning above her head. Other parents sat patiently, palms in their laps, and looked at the stage with neutral expressions. Rita couldn’t
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Finding Your Power

I Realized That Sharing My Mental Illness Is An Act Of Love

“I share being bipolar because it is an act of love.” This just came out of my mouth last night while I was talking to a friend of my husband. She was telling me about her daughter’s struggles without sharing intimate details, so I told her I was bipolar. This usually makes people more comfortable
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The author on her back porch

Love and A Hurricane

There’s an example of all that is good buzzing at the end of our block. It’s a home being re-built. My friend Judith lost half her house from the wind. It was the only victim of Hurricane Irma in our neighborhood. Her oak tree, with hundreds of rings, gave in to one of the last
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Little Matt and Emma sitting in the front yard with their symbols of love - our dogs Clouseau and Sammy

What Love Looks Like

Love is love. It’s not something you bottle or define, but it is everywhere. Look around, and you’ll feel love in some form. For me there are endless symbols of love in our garden and many inside our home. The blooms, the photos and mementos of childhood. The big and the small dog. Symbols of
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Sitting at the dining room table for my bio photo

I Carry Your Heart With Me

E. E. Cummings wrote the perfect poem of love. It reaches right into your soul. My favorite line is, “I carry your heart with me (I carry it in my heart)” A heart within a heart is such a powerful metaphor. And then there’s the weight of the promise. To carry a heart inside your
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A photo of my mother age 16

My Mother Inoculated Me With Love

Forgiveness was never top-of-mind when I thought about my mom. A list of childhood grievances sat on my heart for decades. Now I think about how hard it was to be a young, single mother with a mental illness. Rita did some extraordinary, hair-raising things when I was growing up, like throwing her boyfriend’s computer
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Our Foster Puppy Maggie Resting on Our Bed

Saying Goodbye To Our Foster Dog Maggie

I’m in love with our foster puppy Maggie. This morning she was a toasty little bean bag in my lap. We sat in an upholstered rocker by a window, rocking and looking out at a tall magnolia and the milky sky. When she started to drift into sleep she tucked her head in the crook
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Our foster puppy Maggie on our bed

When We Got Maggie She Was At Death’s Door

I’ve been fostering puppies for years, but I never had one like Maggie. I met her when she was nearly lifeless. In the lobby of the Atlanta Humane Society, I saw a vet tech turn the corner with a bag of bones dangling from her arms. It looked like a burn victim, red and blistered.
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Best Friends Moira and Saye the year before Moira was diagnosed with breast cancer

She Threw A Surprise Party For Her Best Friend The Night Before Chemotherapy Began

Saye and Moira are best friends. Moira was diagnosed with Stage 4 breast cancer recently. And what did Saye do? She turned up the love. She even threw a surprise party for Moira the night before her chemotherapy began. She wanted to shower Moira with love before her heartless journey. The night of the party,
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