Newsletters
The late-November afternoon sun cast a gloomy mood on Jackson’s day. The Sunday Scaries haunted him. His dad and he were listening to classic rock on the radio on their way to the grocery store. At 12 years old, he had been taking guitar lessons for three years. His second guitar teacher, Toby, had recently…
Read More
On a dreary, rainy day in May, we decided to visit an open house that had just come on the market. We were contemplating a downsizing move but had not started to search for new homes. The whole process of buying and selling seemed daunting. But the gloomy forecast gave us an incentive to check…
Read More
In the middle of the night, my husband, Jay, was rushed to the ER by ambulance with a kidney stone emergency. I couldn’t go with him because at the time our kids were too young to leave them home alone. I found him the next morning in a shared room with the curtain drawn. His…
Read More
In a quiet, remote lab in the basement of a building at the University of Minnesota, Mimi was making gluten balls—and going crazy. She had been doing the same mind-numbing task for months. Her mood darkened with the shrinking daylight hours as winter loomed. A graduate student in food science, she was lucky to have a job and…
Read More
We were heading toward the check-out line when an announcement came over the PA: “Attention Target Shoppers! Due to a tornado in the area, all customers must remain in the store. Please make your way to the back of the store and stay away from windows.” The announcement was unwelcome news at 7:30 pm. I’d…
Read More
Signing a petition changed my life. It was the fall of 1981. Leafing through the member newsletter from the American Dietetic Association, I saw an announcement that some dietitians were forming a practice group in Sports and Cardiovascular Nutrition. The group would be called SCAN, and they needed signatures for a petition. I was finishing…
Read More
“Mom, I’m not taking this note to my teacher,” ten-year-old Eric protested, while Karla shoved stuff into his backpack. “But Eric, your teacher needs to know these details about your blood sugar.” He grabbed his backpack and hollered, “Don’t send anymore notes to my teacher.” The door slammed shut. Twelve-year-old Emily rushed into the kitchen…
Read More
Kim and Tom’s retirement dreams were shattered when Tom had a stroke five months ago. Married for 35 years, they live in a small town north of Cleveland. When Kim turned 60 three months before Tom’s stroke, she retired from her career as a social worker. Tom was a heavy-equipment operator, and they planned for him…
Read More
Overwhelmed by the throng of people whooshing past me, I drifted to the outer edge of the pond, unaware that I’d wandered onto thin ice. Suddenly, the ice gave out under me—the next thing I knew I was up to my armpits in water, clinging to the edge of broken ice. The blue sky and…
Read More
Lying in bed the evening of New Year’s Day 1999 in a hotel room, I palpated my abdomen and had a sinking feeling … something is really wrong. We were on a house-hunting trip to move our family with three small children (15 months, three years, and six years old) from Ithaca, NY to Minneapolis,…
Read More