Harriet Bristol didn’t have any immediate family. She didn’t have a host of friends left. She was a very private person. Come to find out, she had led quite an inspiring life. Somehow, I felt a connection, which is why I was one of four people who stood under a shelter that cold, rainy day to attend her funeral recently …
What would you do if, all of a sudden, your city was overwhelmed with desperate people? They gave everything they had to get to your city to legally claim asylum, fleeing violence and government oppression and starvation due to climate change. But after claiming asylum and being held in the “ice box” detention center for up to to 30 days …
On a West coast trip a few weeks ago, three of the most profound days of my career began with a tour of the City of Hope National Medical Center near Los Angeles, followed by a late afternoon conversation with Robert Stone, the institution’s CEO. Stone was clearly weary at the end of a long work day but warmed immediately …
Many years ago, on one of my visits to Pittsburgh, I told Fred Rogers about my experience riding in the back of a rental truck crowded with scores of Central American refugees. I vaguely remember my friend, the icon of children’s television, telling me later that he had mentioned my story in a speech. I hadn’t thought about this in …
Tim Wright and I were born a few days apart in December 1957. (He’s older and rather looks it, I think.) Which is to say that Tim and I are both on the far side of a generational divide in America. Either you were a Captain Kangaroo kid or a Mister Rogers kid, and we were both Captain Kangaroo guys …
Last year, grief therapist Patrick O’Malley and I published “Getting Grief Right: Finding Your Story of Love in the Sorrow of Loss.” We suggest in the book that there is no right or wrong way to grieve, that each person’s experience of mourning is as unique as a fingerprint and that, therefore, there are no reliable models, no steps and stages …
By now you’ve probably heard that Saturday’s synagogue slaughter took place in the same Pittsburgh neighborhood, Squirrel Hill, where Fred Rogers lived and worshipped himself. His spirit is now often invoked as the heartbroken city struggles to heal. The grim news for me brought back a much different memory of that place, from another autumn morning 23 years ago. I …