Now, as I look back on the 43 years of mine and Pat’s friendship, our friendship grew deeper as the circle of her life kept extending, including so many more lives touched by hers.

Beginning the day after Mardi Gras, the 40 days of Lent marks a season of self-denial that culminates on Easter Sunday, commemorating the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Death. Burial. Resurrection. Dying to one thing in order to live, or make space for something else. Something better.

These words have played and replayed in my head throughout the month of December, not because of the release of the movie WICKED, but because I can’t stop thinking about you. Readers. Thinkers.

If Life itself were like a MONOPOLY board, Life would have 40 spaces to land on. And passing Go would be like having birthdays.

My brain is tired but my heart is full after leading the Bible study of 25 psalms. . . I referred to this teaching as “a beta study” for the women who participated for nine weeks.

“If your mother hadn’t gone out there to Dallas and married your sorry daddy,” Aunt Bessie said to my mother, “you could have had a happy life here. She would have married Pete Everett and he would have been your daddy.”