Writing a eulogy is an act of loving someone a lot and letting them go a little — I wish you didn’t need this. You shouldn’t need this. But if you do, I am placing this here for you as a small offering of love. You are not alone. If you are called to write a remembrance for your child, I am with you. You can do this. …

Slowness — so rare, these days — can be an offering of love — Many years ago I lived in Italy. A few blocks from my apartment, there was a tunnel closed to everything but foot traffic. The tunnel was short — ten yards from one end to another, and connected a quiet street with a cobblestoned piazza. Little local stores lined the inside…

Follow these rules, and no matter how bad the fall, you’re a winner — My wife drops me off at work in the morning, and most of the time it’s nice. We kiss. We sigh. We offer our traditional farewells: “Let’s quit our jobs and run away to other jobs and quit those and run away forever!” But it wasn’t nice last Monday morning. …

There is a memory that has been haunting me for several days — The four of us waded into dark waters in the night. The moon was out, but not enough to make the darkness of water any less frightening. It was early summer on the East coast, late June on Cape Cod, at an inlet on the Buzzard’s Bay side. Mild days…

An ode to everyone who failed to teach me how to whistle, but gave me other gifts instead — I. I began learning how not to whistle when I was starring in the first grade class play, Snow White Thinks Twice. …