My mother called tonight while I was cooking dinner. Again, for the third time today. I knew it was she because the words "Mom's cell" lit up my own cell phone like a marquee on Times Square. I lay down my cutting knife and shook the pieces of onion and red pepper from my hands. Mom with a cell-phone; boy, have things changed!

There was a time in my life, B.C. (Before Cell phones) when my mother would become anxious, depressed and even mildly hysterical because she couldn't reach me by phone. No matter that I worked full-time and ran a marathon life shuttling kids, groceries and the dog from one end of town to the other. If she called the house and I didn't answer, something had to be wrong.

Many say their most painful moments are saying good-bye to those they love. After watching Cheryl, my daughter-in-law, through the six long months her mother suffered towards death, I think the most painful moments can be in the waiting to say good-bye.

Cheryl made the two-hour trip over and over to be with her mother. They spent the long afternoons praying, soothing, comforting, and retelling their shared memories.

As her mother's pain intensified and more medication was needed to ease her into sedation, Cheryl sat for hours of silent vigil by her mother's bed.

At Pillar Point Lighthouse, south of San Francisco, where the ocean gives way to the land, I stood on the edge of two worlds. That day my thoughts were as restless as the relentless sea pummeling the shore below. I was floundering, torn between the deep attachments of the past and the pressing need to let go of them forever. I was almost ready to give up.

Me, single again? I can't do this! Two months earlier, my husband had suddenly walked out of our marriage. The discovery of multiple affairs going back decades left me breathless. Now, as a single working mother of a teenager, I felt overwhelmed. Sometimes I felt I could make it through, but at other times I just wanted to die.

In September of the year I turned nineteen, my parents drove up unexpectedly one Sunday afternoon to my college dorm. My mother sat down, quietly sniffling, while my dad, truly uncomfortable, cleared his throat, paused for a moment, and told me that they had received a letter from the Social Security Administration.

The letter said that Daniel Frazier - and for a moment, a heartbeat moment, I couldn't remember who he was - had died, and I was entitled to Social Security benefits. Oh yes, he used to be my father. Well, my birth father. I don't even remember him.

"Is everything okay?" Tim asks as we drive through the night's heavy rain.

"I'm fine," I say, staring out my window. "Just tired from the plane ride." The November downpour outside is a harsh contrast to the warm beaches we enjoyed all week on our honeymoon.

"If you want," he begins slowly, "we can probably stay with your mom and dad."

"No, that's okay!" I say quickly, half smiling. I turn to look at our backseat, piled with the wedding gifts we had picked up from my parents' house. The drive to our new apartment to spend the night for the first time is lonely.

"Put on your cape, Superwoman! You think you can leap tall buildings in a single bound?" one of my sisters asked sarcastically when the four of us girls were discussing my mother's care after her stroke. As a happily married mother of three teenagers, full-time childcare provider, aspiring author and a volunteer, my life was very full. Yet, I was convinced that having Mom stay with my family was best for her recovery.

To say it had been a difficult year was an understatement. We had pulled together through the death of my brother-in-law, Dad's quadruple-bypass surgery, Mom's spleen-removal surgery and now a major stroke, which had paralyzed the left side of her body. After much prayer, I'd closed a lucrative cake-decorating business in order to pursue God's call to write, and I could hardly believe that within months He'd rewarded me with the sale of the first book I'd ever written. Mingled with many layers of ongoing grief and stress was the excitement each stage of publication brought.

My brother Maurice and three of his buddies - Sam, Renwick and Earl - have a regular golf game every Friday during the summer. In order to make the game interesting and even, they use handicaps. As a result of this, Maurice and Earl are partners, and Sam and Renwick play together.

Maurice never walks the golf course and is always trying to get one of the other guys to ride with him. This particular Friday in July, it was very warm, and he asked Renwick to ride with him.

It just so happens that Renwick had been on a health kick for a couple of months, so he told Maurice that he would prefer to walk. Renwick had lost about twenty pounds and had just purchased a carry bag from the pro shop, deciding that toting, rather than using a pull cart as he walked the course, would help him stay in shape.

I know when it happened. . . . the exact moment.

Houston Intercontinental Airport, 11:30 p.m.: My flight was three-and-a-half hours late. I sat in a phone station in the baggage area to check my business messages, and like a bolt of lightning, it hit me. If I fell over dead at that very moment, no one passing by to get a rental car, or to get their suitcases, or to greet loved ones would know who I was, where I was coming from or where I was going. No one would know I was missing for quite a while. It was an odd, lonely and very important moment in my life. I then decided to find someone significant who would miss me if I failed to arrive.

A cold March wind danced around Dallas as the doctor walked into Diana Blessing's small hospital room. It was the dead of night and she was still groggy from surgery. Her husband, David, held her as they braced themselves for the latest news.

That rainy afternoon, March 10, 1991, complications had forced Diana, only twenty-four weeks pregnant, to undergo emergency surgery. At twelve inches long and weighing only one pound, nine ounces, Danae Lu arrived by cesarean delivery.

When I was a little girl, say four or five years old, there were many things that frightened me: Snakes, bugs, big older boys and storms. I remember the dark, rainy nights when a thunderstorm would roll into town and wake me from a sleep, in my childhood room at the front end of the house.

The rain would beat on my window as shadows played games on my bedroom walls. Tree branches screeched against the outside of the house making strange noises. I’d lay there, so afraid, nearly ready to cry. Poking my little foot out from under the covers, I’d slide out of my warm bed and tiptoe quietly into the next room where my mother and daddy slept.

It was the third day my husband, Joe, had been in the intensive care unit following his fifth surgery for the removal of most of his remaining small intestine. The surgery took many more hours than expected. Joe was older and weaker, and he wasn’t responding.

As I sat beside his bed, two nurses tried repeatedly to get him to cough, open his eyes, move a finger - anything to let them know he could hear them. He didn’t respond. I sat praying to God to please help Joe respond - any sign that he might survive.

I have to admit that I have never played golf. In fact, the only golf course that I have ever been on ended with me trying to hit the ball into a clown’s mouth. That’s why it is so strange that the game of golf had such an impact on my life.

I was nineteen years old and had just started dating a young man that I had met at work. We seemed to have a chemistry together and both shared a love of competition. A lot of our time with each other was spent bowling or playing arcade games like pinball or Pac Man. Being a ’70s kind of girl, I was determined to prove my capabilities and be an equal and worthy opponent. As it turned out, our skills were fairly evenly matched. We were both thoroughly enjoying our playful competitions.

When I was a little girl, every Sunday my family of six would put on their best clothes and go to Sunday School and then church. The kids in elementary school would all meet together to sing songs, and then later divide into groups based on their ages.

One Easter Sunday, all the kids arrived with big eyes and big stories about what the Easter Bunny had brought. While all of the kids shared their stories with delight, one young boy, whom I shall call Bobby, sat sullenly. One of the teachers, noticing this, said to him, “And what did the Easter Bunny bring you?” He replied, “My mom locked the door on accident so the Easter Bunny couldn’t get inside.”

We had shopped for hours, my mom and I, and we were having a ball. We knew in our hearts that we would find just the right dress. Five months remained until the wedding; we had plenty of time and we had lots of patience. And then we found it - at J.C. Penney's Bridal Shop.

I stood on a dark-blue carpeted platform, surrounded by mirrors. The clerk brought gown after gown for me to try. I felt like a queen, admired by my mom perched in a cozy, overstuffed chair. As soon as she zipped the back of the third dress, we both knew we had found the one.

Ngày xuân, bên cạnh những món ăn ngon, những câu chuyện vui vẻ, có một thứ không thể thiếu, đó chính là chén rượu, cốc bia. Thông qua đó, mọi người cùng nâng ly vui vẻ để thể hiện tình cảm và đó cũng được coi là một cách giao tiếp.

“Chạm cốc, chạm ly” là câu nói cửa miệng của nhiều người tại những bàn tiệc, những cuộc vui. Thế nhưng, trong số chúng ta, lại có rất ít người hiểu được ý nghĩa của hành động chạm cốc này. Tại sao phải chạm cốc và việc chạm cốc có ý nghĩa gì đặc biệt?

Ngày xuân, trong tiếng tí tách của mưa nồng, tiếng xôn xao của hoa nở, tiếng rộn ràng của lời ca, tiếng dạt dào của dòng sông, tiếng rì rầm của biển, các bạn ơi, mọi người ơi, hãy cất lên vui vẻ những tiếng cười!

Không biết sẽ thế nào nếu trên đời này không có tiếng cười? Không biết thế giới này sẽ như thế nào nếu mặt người nào cũng khó đăm đăm, buồn rười rượi? Nếu không có tiếng cười, chắc hẳn toàn thế giới sẽ là một cuộc chiến tranh, cả nhân loại sẽ đau buồn khôn cùng