Stories With Heart And Soul 
I’ve always been single-minded, pooling all my energy into one goal. It’s a strategy that helped me attend a favorite college and land a dream job in advertising. When I was seven, I locked my father out of the car until he threw his cigarettes in a trash can. He begged me to let him
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Thanksgiving dinner was very good. It actually was. The contributing factors were size, ease and listening ears. It was just the four was of us, my children Matt and Emma and my husband Mark. This dialed the drama meter down significantly as there were fewer personalities to balance and fewer dishes to scrub. The four
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We’re having the littlest Thanksgiving tomorrow. Just the four of us, and I’m perfectly happy. I would love to have a bigger group, but the local relatives have other plans. They’re driving back from a house hunting trip on Thanksgiving Day. Cousin Rosemary can’t fly from California. She shattered her ankle skiing. Another cousin thinks
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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. She’s a perfect memory of the ideal human experience. Let me explain why I love this woman. Some of us lick the edges of life. Others live with a sore patch, constantly rubbing the wound. Either keeping it fresh or making it ooze. Most of
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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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