Tag: column

For everything there is a season.

I’m saying goodbye to my dear friend, Tom, today. Tom was 86 and had cancer and a whole host of other health problems, yet I was shocked to learn he was gone.

He lived a good, full life and I know what he is seeing now is too magnificent for words. If he used ... Read More

Have you tired of your New Year’s resolution yet?

Maybe you hoped to avoid the feeling of failure by not declaring one. That’s sort of the route I take.

While I’m not big into resolutions, I did set an intention for 2019. I learned this practice from some friends who come up with a special word at the beginning of each year. ... Read More

Last week I posed a question that had come across my desk from a Fargo mail carrier. He asked, “Where does citizenship end and kindness begin?”

His job often puts him in positions where he feels compelled to help. A lost cell phone, a wandering child or an emergency that requires a call to 911.

We are taught to be nice and ... Read More

More often than not, when we do random acts of kindness, we never hear about it again. We don’t ever truly know the impact it made on the other person. We just have to trust that kindness worked whatever magic in that person’s life that was needed at that exact moment.

But every once in a while, an act of kindness ... Read More

I’m having one of those “Look what I found!” moments. In simpler times, when I didn’t have to bend over so far to reach the ground, I would have them often. I’d spy the tiniest corner of a buried treasure and spend the next 10 minutes frantically excavating before tearing into the house to show my mother what I’d uncovered.

It’s a touch quieter than normal in our house this year. For the first time in my career as a mom, all three of my children are in elementary school. Jordan is a big kid this year; she’s in sixth grade. Charlie is in fourth grade, and little Ben is in all-day, every-day kindergarten.

I love sugar. It may not be healthy, but it’s true. I love sugar almost as much as I love kindness.

Beth Delgado is a businesswoman in Grand Forks who clearly shares my heart. She’s making it her business to make people’s days a little sweeter in a lot of ways.

I was speaking at an event recently when a woman raised her hand and asked me, “Have you found that kindness truly is contagious?”

What a great question. The answer I gave her was a resounding “Yes!” but I struggled to come up with an immediate specific example. Sometimes kindness comes directly back to us, and sometimes it’s passed on to ... Read More

I’ve held the belief for a while now that if you truly want to be happy and feel fulfilled, you have to get your mind off yourself and onto the needs of others.

I had to apologize to my neighbor for being so crabby to her and her grandchildren. We all went to a party at the community center, and I was off. Way off. Nothing was right. I should have been quarantined in a room by myself, but unfortunately, I wasn’t, and no one was safe from my venom.