Stories With Heart And Soul 
They say there are no accidents. That is not true. I am a classic accident. Technically speaking, I am an only child born to Rita Marie Murray three months after her 18th birthday at Saint Vincent’s Hospital in Manhattan. This is not a joke. She told me I was a blue blood baby. I only
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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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I met an angel on a sidewalk in Harlem, NY. Remembering her I feel the human experience in its ideal form. Let me tell you why. Some of us lick the edges of life. Others live like dogs with a sore patch, constantly licking our wounds and only making them worse. We keep on like
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I am reading Gift from the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh again. Anne wrote it at the beach where she went alone to reflect on the pattern of her life. She wrote about her affinity for freshly sharpened pencils. I know exactly how she felt. There are so many satisfying things about pencils. Sharpening them is instantly
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Thanksgiving is around the corner. Before you know it, we’ll be making New Year’s resolutions to lose the holiday weight, or just the weight. Or exercise or be more organized. There were years I made lists, imagining I could accomplish more than one thing. After careful consideration, I decided to cast off making resolutions last
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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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I spoke to a customer service representative recently who was working during a natural disaster. Flooding in her community had reached historic levels. She filled me in on the areas affected and shared a story about a friend not being able to reach her elderly father because the road was washed out. She said they
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Family dinner is good for the soul. When my children Matt and Emma were young, I read articles about the value of sitting together for meals. Family dinner saves lives, preventing drug abuse and reducing the likelihood of all kinds of social pathology. It even boosted IQs so I devoted myself to the ritual, using
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“Today is the anniversary of my mom Rita’s death. I was 22 when she died so this year has special significance as my daughter Emma is 22. We are going to do 22 kind things together in honor of my mom. The first is asking people to join us in honoring this day with an act of
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I have the privilege of being a substitute teacher at the Atlanta Girls’ School school where my daughter Emma attended middle school and high school. The word privilege sounds like hyperbole when you’re talking about being a substitute teacher, but it’s not. When Emma was a student at the AGS, I was a vocal fan
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