Category Archives: family
PIECES OF MY FATHER
On this day in 2004, my father died. Each year, the day is, for me, one of reflection and reverence. A journey back through memories. My father had a scar on his thumb, a dent really, from a childhood accident.
MY FATHER, RONALD REAGAN
This is one of the stories that I used to ask my father to tell again and again: He was a young actor, filming a movie in England. He always began the story with a funny anecdote about trying to
THINGS I WISH I COULD ASK MY FATHER
To my father on Father’s Day: I wish I’d asked you more about the young nearsighted boy you once were, who took refuge in books, who learned to read at a startlingly young age. Who spent hours on the river,
excerpt from THE LONG GOODBYE
Twelve years ago, on June 5, my father died. This is an excerpt from my book The Long Goodbye which was published in 2004. The book chronicled the journey of losing him to Alzheimer’s, and this passage is about the
WHAT IS HOME?
We’ve been packing up my mother’s house. The walls are bare now, the shelves empty. That house was never my home — my parents bought it after my father’s two terms as president were over — but it was their
ONCE UPON A TIME
Once upon a time I walked up the driveway in this photograph to a house that could barely be seen from the road. Depending on how tall the shrubs were, you might be able to glimpse the deck. The roofline
THE STREET WHERE I LIVED
I wrote this a few months after my father died. It was published in Life magazine on November 19, 2004. In trying to organize years of my magazine and newspaper pieces, I came across it and decided to re-print it.
STEALING REAGAN
This morning, I took a walk in my old neighborhood, where the house I grew up in has been leveled and a new house is being built. I hadn’t been there for a while, so I was surprised at how
WHEN A FRIEND DIES
My friend died early this morning, long after midnight and long before dawn. She waged a fierce battle against the cancer that ultimately won. She had been in the hospital for 3 weeks and the night before she died she
ON THE ANNIVERSARY OF MY FATHER’S DEATH
There was a full moon the night before my father died. Like the moon a few nights ago that shone through my window, bright as a prayer. Eleven years have passed since my father’s death and, strange as it may