On this Memorial Day, I am thinking of my husband’s great-uncle. I have thought of him often over the past eleven months since my brother died. Young, handsome, and beloved by his parents and older brother and sisters, he chose to serve his country as an airman in the Navy. He never made it into WWII combat. At the age of 21, he was killed in a flight training accident on a base in Florida, a tragic loss. I met my husband’s grandfather and his two great-aunts, his grandfat

Exhibit A: The ubiquitous Yoda quote, “Do. Or do not. There is no try.” Exhibit B: The ubiquitous quest to do (X thing) for/in honor of/in memory of (X person). I probably don't go a day without encountering a true story – in a newspaper, on a web site, on Twitter, on Facebook, in person – about someone who accomplished a challenging goal with a person as inspiration. People run races for friends who are ill, climb mountains in honor of lost loved ones, lose 50 pounds for th

Recently I went on a business trip and picked up a copy of Cheryl Strayed’s Wild in an airport bookstore. Several people have told me that it’s a movie I should see, and I had subsequently written it down on a list of “movies I should see,” but if a movie is adapted from a book, I generally prefer to read the book first. I still haven’t seen the movie yet, but I read the book from cover to cover. I found it engaging and the journey was impressive. I was looking to be inspire