I’d been hoping to leave without tears.

My Granddaddy was a practical man.

The right word can heal. The wrong one can destroy.

My book’s cover features a quote by Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu: ``Forgiveness is not for sissies.’’

Julie Duffy, founding director of a Denver shelter for women and transgender individuals, has walked alongside so many women, supporting them as they lived their truths.

Years after my mother’s death, I was sitting with the daughter of a friend who had just died and remembering:  A house of loss is a hungry house.

The late South African artist David Koloane once told me: "Being born in South Africa, I know no other country. And I don't think I can love any other country as much as I love the country where I was born and where my ancestors were born."

He expressed that love by looking closely and with great empathy, then translating what he saw onto canvas.