Not long ago, I had one of those days. They come along periodically, and randomly, it seems. I wake up with a nagging sensation of trouble. Initially I wonder if I’ve neglected to take care of something important for work, or if I have to pay a bill, or sign a child up for something before deadline, or make an appointment for a medical test, or what. Every time this happens, it takes pretty much all day to unearth the cause. I don’t know why. You would think I could figure it out quickly by now. Then again, when I haul overflowing laundry baskets down to the basement I often think, “Where could all this dirty clothing have come from?” I know the cause, of course, and answer the question for

When someone close to a friend or family member dies, we often wonder: What can I possibly say? We wrestle with our sadness and discomfort. Sometimes we manage to send a message fairly quickly but don’t know how to continue the conversation. Other times it takes us a longer time to craft a letter. Maybe several months go by and we realize we haven’t gotten in touch. After my brother died, letters, cards, emails, Facebook messages, and texts began to arrive from family and friends all over the country and the world. I heard from neighbors we grew up with, work colleagues of Frank’s, people I see all the time, people I haven’t seen in decades, friends of my grandparents, people who’ve never me