I’m a little late, but happy heavenly birthday to two enigmatic souls who are a huge part of me: my adoptive mother, whose birthday was Friday, and my biological father, whose birthday was Saturday. Olga Eneida de Freitas Christlieb, shown on a happy Christmas morning in the early 1970s, raised me and therefore greatly influenced … More Happy birthday to 2 people who are a big part of me — even though I never met one of them

I had the most wonderful phone visit with this gentleman this morning. He’s Bob Nelson, and he was my Dad’s best friend growing up in St. Paul, Minnesota. Bob turned 90 in April and is still going strong, just using “a stick” — a cane — occasionally, although he says he doesn’t really need to. … More Just what I needed — a long-distance, long-overdue chat with Dad’s childhood best friend

As I fell in love with baseball at a young age, one of the players I couldn’t get enough of was this guy. Tom Terrific truly was to me, even if it seemed like my team, the Houston Astros, could never touch him. My editing shift for The Dallas Morning News was almost over Wednesday … More Tipping my cap to a fallen baseball hero who truly was Terrific, on and off the field

Blogging this from a post on my Facebook page on Thursday, Aug. 20: For 10 hours today until getting discharged about noon, this was my view from a room at Texas Health Harris Methodist Hospital in Fort Worth (the same place I had my ruptured appendix yanked out in late May). But before being wheeled … More When a pain in the leg turns out to be deep vein danger

Blogging this from my Facebook today: Many of you saw my post Wednesday about my late biological mother Betty’s 99th birthday. As most of you know, I have three older full-blooded birth family siblings — brothers Crys and Robin and sister Terry — whom I found 15 years ago. We lost dear Robin, a smart, … More Shared memories of a shared mother so I can know her, too

It seems all too unbelievable, but my precious birth mother Betty is 99 years old today, July 22, 2020. She’s celebrating with all the other angels, as she has been since arriving at heaven’s gates five days before Christmas 1992. So many of my Facebook friends and family have shared in my birth family journey … More On her 99th birthday, missing and loving the mom I never met

I’m not a reporter — like our dear friend and former Dallas Morning News copy desk colleague Christopher Wienandt, I’ve been a copy editor for many years. But I started my career as a sports writer, have always had a passion for writing and still try to make my own opportunities. When it looked like … More An ace copy editor, a man of mighty intellect and razor wit, joins heaven’s newspaper staff

Fifteen years. As of June 11, 2020, that’s how long it’s been since I “rejoined” the family I was separated from at birth through adoption. How long it’s been since I called a stranger in Colorado, one of two brothers and a sister, my three older siblings who grew up in Huntington, West Virginia, where … More Celebrating 15 years as part of a ‘new’ family that’s always felt like home

Since discovering my West Virginia roots in 2005 — most wonderfully, finding my three older full siblings — I’ve tried to learn as much as possible about my biological parents and my birthplace of Huntington. In doing so, I’ve reached out to a multitude of strangers, most of whom didn’t know Betty and Bob. But … More A heavenly send-off to the man who hired my birth mother over a half-century ago

So much can happen in a week. Our nation slipped deeper into an abyss of racial division and hatred after the savage, unforgivable killing of George Floyd by four officers in Minneapolis. Protests, the majority of them peaceful, lawful and proper, began and will continue as we try to make sense of all killings of … More A ruptured-appendix patient and a ruptured nation: One’s healing, but can the other?