My life, like most, has unfolded in chapters. Some expected, some not. I have lived through seasons of building and rebuilding—of marriage and its ending, of loss and renewal, of finding my way again when the ground beneath me shifted.
My life has been shaped by the relationships I’ve been given—and the ones I’ve chosen to show up for.
I’ve worn many labels over the years—wife, mother, daughter, college professor, financial planner, life coach, realtor. But titles rarely capture what matters most.
Of all the roles I’ve held in this life, being a mother to my three sons is the one most precious to me. With them, I have known a love that expands everything. They have been the source of my greatest joy—and, at times, my deepest sorrow.
My relationship with my mother was one of the defining relationships of my life.
We struggled when I was young, each of us finding our way through our own challenges. But when I became a mother myself, something shifted between us.
She stood beside me as I brought my first son into the world. In that moment, we found each other again—this time not just as mother and daughter, but as companions in life.
From that point on, we walked alongside each other for decades.
We shared life in all its forms—joy, heartbreak, change, and growth. When my husband was away, she was there. When life asked more of me than I thought I could give, she was there.
Years later, when her life began to narrow, she came to live with me. And I had the privilege of caring for her in the final chapter of her life—just as she had once cared for me.
These roles—mother, daughter, caregiver—have taught me more than any title ever could.
They have taught me about presence. About patience. About what it means to stay, even when things are hard.
And they have shown me, again and again, that love does not disappear—it changes form, but it remains.
While raising my sons, I returned to school and completed my education, balancing family, work, and a deep desire to understand both the world and myself more fully. I have studied, searched, questioned, and grown—sometimes with intention, and sometimes simply because life asked it of me.
In 2013, my youngest son, Michael, died in a tragic accident. In a single moment, the life I knew was forever changed.
What followed was not something I would have ever chosen, but it became one of the most transformative journeys of my life. Not because the loss lessened—it didn’t—but because something within me began to open in ways I could not have imagined.
I often describe it as an upward spiral of healing. Not a straight line, and not a destination, but a gradual movement—through grief, into grace, and toward a different way of living.
Out of that experience came a deepening—a need to understand, to write, and to make meaning of what I was living.
I first turned to journaling as a way to make sense of my own experience, and then began to share what I was discovering along the way. What had once been a quiet desire to write became something I could no longer set aside. It became a necessary part of my healing.
In the years that followed, I wrote several books, drawing from those journals and my own experience of learning to live joyfully from a broken-open heart—to till the sacred soil of sorrow and harvest its blessings. These books were never meant to be instruction as much as companionship for those walking through their own seasons of loss.
Six years after Michael’s death, I began writing Morning Cuppa Joy, a weekly reflection on being human—on love, loss, and the quiet beauty woven through our everyday lives.
I continue to write Morning Cuppa Joy to help myself and those who read it focus on the beauty and love that surrounds us—to pay attention to the joy that bubbles up in the midst of chaos. It is a reminder to be grateful for each precious moment, and for the loved ones we get to share those moments with. It has grown quietly over the years into a place of connection for many who, like me, want to focus attention on the good in our world.
I had the good fortune to turn 80 in November 2025. I have become someone who pays attention—to the small moments, to the beauty that still exists even in difficult seasons, to the ways love continues to show up in our lives.
If there is a thread that runs through everything I’ve been and done, it is this:
A belief that even in the midst of loss, uncertainty, or change, there is something within us that remains steady—and that learning to live from that place can transform the way we experience our lives.
If my words have found their way to you, I hope they offer not answers, but a sense that you are not alone.
