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Last week, as I prepared to go to work, I swiveled my office chair from beneath my desk and I saw a vision that I was not prepared to see. It was Steele, the male Samoyed dog that Cathy and I affectionately called our first son. Steele died almost four years ago and I haven’t mourned for him in quite some time. In a literal blink of my eyes, Steele’s spirit occupied the body of our Husky/Akita mix, looked

The poaching of Cecil, the lion, has sparked public outrage and not just in the animal-loving community. It saddened me to learn that the world lost a beautiful animal because of the greed of a few humans. I don’t understand the greed that lives inside of the American dentist. He has repeatedly felt the need to assert his false supremacy over exotic animals by killing them. The hunt leaders, who willing accepte

Over the past few days, I have spent a considerable amount of time catching up with an old friend. He was my best friend when I was a child, and then as I grew older, we grew apart. I reunited with him briefly in my mid-20s and in light of the life-changing year I had in 2014, I decided to look him up again. I am talking about Winnie The Pooh. Yes. I consider him as my friend! As a young boy, I was all about the lova

In the quietness of frequent 90-minute, 3rd-shift commutes to work, I would talk to myself. Peter, what are you doing this for?  Is this job worth the sacrifices you are making? You have been to hell and back already, and you are literally driving yourself back to that dark place. You know, there are a lot of unemployed people who would appreciate this job. You should stick it out. You have to help support your famil

A few days ago, I saw daffodils poking through the flower bed that lines our driveway. As I approached them, they screamed with excitement, “Spring is coming. Spring is coming!” Not so fast. Seasons don’t  listen to weather forecasters and they don’t follow a calendar. They don’t circle an approaching appointment for an anniversary, birthday, or retirement day. Seasons flow from one to t

This post has been floating  and swirling around in my mind like clouds in the sky for several months. Today, they came together to form an image and this blog post. Cathy and I stood in the back of a full-beyond-capacity church for a memorial service of my brother’s girlfriend, who died unexpectedly in a car accident on Thanksgiving eve. I saw my brother sitting near the front of the church, with another broth

Today is Halloween. A day when children are generously rewarded, with lots of candy, for their costumes and playing make-believe. During this season, adults dress-up in outlandish outfits and have a fun day at the office, attend parties, or go to a bar. The rewards are different for adults: maybe a day off, a cash prize, or a free drink. Halloween is a season of walking through haunted houses or corn mazes and watchi

I had to keep my eyes closed because I was experiencing a horrible case of double-vision and I had just vomited from the breathing apparatus that was lodged in the back of my throat. I heard my wife, Cathy, talking to someone, presumably a doctor. I will never forget the words I heard, as I lay on a gurney, waiting to be transferred to a different hospital. “Your husband had a stroke during the procedure.”

“Hardship displays character, it doesn’t build it.” These are words that I heard from an Extreme Makeover: Home Edition project manager a few years ago. They still resonant with me today. Think about the words for a moment. Hardship displays character. As a volunteer for four different Extreme builds, I saw some real ugly displays of character. Some volunteers refused to pick up trash while others l

For two weeks, after I completed my physical, occupational, and speech therapies, I would take a moment for appreciating the simple things I had in life. Everyday, I would look at the emerging Crokus and Daffodils in the community garden. The fragile flowers were my symbols of strength. They gave me hope. Hope that I would continue to see myself as a survivor.  I wanted to stay away from a dark path where I would thi