My new book "Be the Miracle" has only been out for two weeks and it's already been an amazing journey. People are blessing me in so many ways.

Last week, 300 people showed up at the library in Independenc. On Monday, 200 came to The Plain Dealer. On Tuesday, 200 more came to the library in Strongsville.

.

Tonight, more than 400 people braved a snowstorm to come to St. John Vianney Church in Mentor. One man gave me a thumb cross, a little wooden cross to keep in my pocket to remind me to be grateful.

Tony Stroczynski, a master wood carver from Mentor, originally carved them for the sick and dying. His wife, Lottie, was a nurse who gave them out to patients. They have both passed on, but others have continued their ministry.

A woman named Alice handed me sticky note with a prayer she uses every day:

"Dearest Lord, I love You with my whole, whole heart.

Not for what you give me, but for who You are...

Take my heart and fill it full of love for Thee.

All I have I give to Thee,

Give Thyself to me."

Two friends who hadn't seen each other in 30 years rekindled a friendship tonight.

What a journey.

What a joy you all are.

If you want to be the miracle, where do you start?

Here are 50 tips, all from my new book, Be the Miracle:

1. Start where you are.

2. Get busy on the possible.

3. You can make a big difference, no matter how little you make.

4. Magnify the good.

5. Do your best and forget the rest. It could simply be too soon to tell.

6. We all do the same things. It's how we do them that makes the difference.

7. Interruptions are divine assignments.

8. Adjust your own oxygen mask before helping others, or you'll be of no use to anyone-- including you.

9. Instead of treating people the way you want to be treated, treat people the way they want to be treated.

10. If you want to see a miracle, be the miracle.

11. Everyone matters to somebody.

12. Speak up for others, especially when they aren't present to speak up for themselves.

13. Give birth to yourself every day.

14. Sometimes it's enough to make one person happy.

15. The secret of life is no secret. It's sprinkled all over your life.

16. If you can't be the rock, be the ripple.

17. Give as if the world is your family, because it is.

18. Everyone is either your student or your teacher. Most people are both.

19. Pray like you mean it.

20. Arrive early.

21. Dream big.

22. Consult your own soul. Deep inside you already know the answers you need.

23. Get in the game.

24. God doesn't always call the strong. Sometimes you have to be weak enough to serve.

25. When you have nothing but faith, you have enough.

26. Be a good monk. Make your life a prayer.

27. Believe in abundance.

28. Shine your light, no matter how dark the world around you appears.

29. Comfort the sick. When everyone else flees, be the one who stays.

30. You have an endless supply of abundance from a wealthy Father who loves you, and so does everyone else.

31. Carry as you climb.

32. Be an original. Forge your own path.

33. Harness the power of hope.

34. Watch well your words. Practice restraint of tongue and pen.

35. No matter what happens, don't take it personally. Take it spiritually.

36. The world needs your Yes!

37. Empower your power by joining forces.

38. You are a child's most important teacher.

39. What you think about, you bring about.

40. Aim higher.

41. Make someone else's dream come true.

42. Triage.

43. A saint is someone who knows how much God loves them.

44. Don't quit before the miracle happens.

45. Make amends as soon as you can, while you still can.

46. Silence the noise. In times of doubt or indecision, pause and make room for God.

47. To be a channel of peace, you have to stay open.

48. God will not have His work made manifest by cowards.

49. Leave a legacy time can't erase.

50. If you woke up today, God isn't through with you yet.

The Plain Dealer ran a week of excerpts. Big thanks to my publisher, Terry Egger, and my editors, Debra Adam Simmons, Thom Fladung, Chris Quinn and Barb Galbincea.

If you missed the excerpts, here are all seven:

Start Where You Are. That's lesson one.

Get Busy on the Possible. That's lesson two, one that cancer taught me.

Speak up for others especially when they aren't present to speak up for themselves. I'm still working on this one.

Watch well your words. Practice restraint of tongue and pen. I'm doing better with this, but still have a long way to go.

Don't quit before the miracle happens. This lesson still amazes me. 

Make amends as soon as you can, while you still can. Do it now before it's too late.

To be a channel of peace, you have to stay open. No matter what, keep your heart open.

And finally, this excerpt ran in VIV magazine:

Adjust your own oxygen mask before helping others, or you'll be of no use to anyone -- including you.

I hope you enjoy the excerpts and the book. Wherever you go, wherever life takes you, Be the Miracle for someone.

After the Plain Dealer ran Lesson 12 from my book Be the Miracle, I heard from dozens of readers who also regret not speaking up for others. Here are a few of their emails:

"Many years ago we lived next to a divorced mom with three small children. For quite a while my husband and I witnessed many things that concerned us, child neglect as well as awful living conditions.

This was a middle class neighborhood...stuff happens everywhere. I finally could not watch what was happening and could only imagine what I could not see. I called authorities and it did not take long, the children were taken away to live with their father. I never regretted what I did knowing those children went on to a better life."

Another one wrote:

"I worked in amusement parks for many years, and I have seen people at their worst. But I saw a young man reprimand a woman passing by for yelling at and hitting her young child repeatedly, and I always respected that man for his small participation.  He inspires me to speak up, though fortunately I haven't had to very often.

"I wanted to tell you about my silence that I regret, just to get it off my chest.  Several years ago, I attended a soccer game at Brush High School, as my sister's guest.  Her son was playing for Brush against Cleveland Heights High. The crowd rooting for Brush was mostly, if not all, white, and the supporters of CHHS were a mix of races, but predominantly black.  It was a fun game, until Brush lost. As the CHHS crowd celebrated with cheers and applause, one white woman from Brush stood staring at them with hostility. Then she shouted at them, "Go back to the ghetto where you belong!"  I could not believe my ears.

"This couldn't be acceptable in this day and age, in this town!  I badly wanted to yell back at her, but I didn't. No one did. I kept my mouth shut, because I didn't want to make my sister uncomfortable, since this was her community.  All I felt I could do was glare at the woman.  Had I been alone, I like to think I would have said something to that racist, though I'm not sure what.  

"It's hard to know when or how to respond to someone who does or says something really offensive when one has something to lose for speaking up: a relationship, a job, etc.  But no matter what the circumstances, not speaking up always leaves one feeling regret."

This last one touched me. I love the quote from Robert Kennedy, one of my earliest heroes:

"My conscience still nags about some of the times I haven't spoken up. What you are talking about is 'moral courage,' the 'willingness to speak truth to power despite disapproval from one's own community.'

Robert Kennedy once said: "Few are willing to brave the disapproval of their fellows, the censure of their colleagues, the wrath of their society. Moral courage is a rarer commodity than bravery in battle or great intelligence. Yet it is the one essential, vital quality to change a world that yields most painfully to change."

 

At least that's what happens to most of them.

I gave up making long lists of things to change in my life. Instead, I started choosing a word for the year. Joy. Love. Believe. Hope.

This year, I'm planning to focus on finding joy in the present moment. Instead of daydreaming about some better experience, I want to fully immerse myself in what is.

Yoga helps develop that skill. I've dabbled in it but haven't yet commited to a real practice. It's all about breathing through various positions, which helps you breathe through whatever life hands you.

On Wednesday at 7 p.m., we're going to talk about breathing and yoga on "The Regina Brett Show" on WKSU 89.7. Judi Bar, founder of HeartLight Yoga, will break the myths we all believe about yoga and help us get started changing our lives from the inside out. She's a yoga teacher, therapist and yoga program director for the Cleveland Clinic Center for Lifestyle Medicine.

She'll talk about yoga, its benefits, the differences in styles,  mindfulness, behavior changes that can come with practice and yoga therapy.  She will offer breathing and yoga poses and guided relaxations.

Call in with your questions or comments at 888-957-8897 or email regina@wksu.org

It helped me to train my magnifying glass on everything she did right and loving and good. It also created an opening in my heart for more gratitude.

Many have read about that list in God Never Blinks and done the same.

I just got this email from a woman in Colombia:

"My intention is to say thank you. Sometimes we think we are doing well but God has some weird ways to let us know we are wrong and your book was one of those things. He used this time to help me getting back on His track. Each one of your lessons applies to a specific part of my life. However I would like to concentrate in lesson 45. 'The best is yet to come.'

"Reading about your relationship with your mom made me think about my dad. We use to have a good relationship but after years passed by things changed. I read your book before Christmas this year and I took into account things I could acknowledge to my dad beginning since my birth day and even I motivated my two younger brothers to do it.

"We also decide to make another list to my mom and we read it during the Christmas dinner. I have to say that it was a whole success and the first step to start a new stage with my dad. Now I am 25 and many good things are waiting for me and my family. I only want to have God's blessing and the company of my family. Thank you a lot for that idea you really helped me."

It's also a good way to end the old year and start the new. When you list everything you love about someone, you open the door to more love.

The Secret Santa layaway gifts started at a KMart and spread across the country.  One person spent $3,000 to pay off the layaway items for 15 people. At one store, anonymous donors took care of 75 accounts.

The spirit of goodwill is spreading to other stores. Liz Murphy, from the Learned Owl book store in Hudson, wrote to share that a customer put down a deposit to order a large set of hard-back books as a gift. When the store called to tell him they had arrived, he came in to tell them he didn't have the money yet. 

A customer overheard the conversation and came in the next day and paid for all of the books, all $150 worth.

Wouldn't it be great if this kind of Christmas spirit spread, not just to other stores, but into the new year? 

Thoughtfulness is the key to thanking those people who enhance our lives all year long by delivering the mail and the newspaper, styling our hair, cleaning our homes, walking our dogs, babysitting our children.

I just got this email from a hairdresser who read my column on tips:

“I depend on my tips and I am amazed at the ignorance people show, especially at this time of year.

“I enjoy what I do, and my clients. I'm happy to stay late, come in early, squeeze them in when they need it. Through the years I have learned that the good tippers get the service and the bad tippers have to wait. In the past I've come in on my day off for no tip, saved someone's home dye job for a small tip, or worked in a stranger for no tip.

“The holidays have become a mystery to me. I get plants, used candles, stale candy, and empty cards. Truly, I'm grateful for their business and kindness. But, business is business. I listen to more sins than their priest, and I get a used candle?

“I'm not your friend. I work for you. I wish I could post your column over my station. Thanks for letting me vent. Have a wonderful holiday. I can't say my name. I need my job.”

And we need all those people to continue to bless our lives, so be as thoughtful as you can when tipping them.

In England, my book is called, "Life's Little Detours: 50 Lessons to Find and Hold onto Happiness." A reader there recently sent this email:

"I bought your book - Life's Little Detours - in a superb bookshop in England. I couldn't put your book down and I will buy a second copy for Christmas for a dear friend of mine.

"My marriage broke down in 2010 and I had to leave behind a woman I thought I'd grow old with, and most importantly, three wonderful kids; albeit they are all adults. I can't say that the challenges I've faced in my life have been as personally traumatic as yours....I've generally enjoyed good physical health and that, together with a fairly positive outlook has kept me going.

"That said, I've sometimes visited that dark place in the mind when I felt alone, defeated, unwanted and spent. My (ex) wife and I lost a baby son 25 years ago; I lost a job I loved 3 years ago and then lost the woman I had loved for over 30 years.

"However, I found a strength in myself and received wonderful support from family and those close friends who mostly reveal themselves and their true nature when you're struggling with life's occasional hardships. I also belatedly realised that actually I'm a good guy and have a lot going for me.

"Despite countless 'knockbacks' and a few false starts I decided that if I couldn’t land the job I wanted and needed, I'd create it. So I now run my own small business. It's a struggle but I'm still fighting. My self-esteem and confidence are growing but I've come to understand that these aspects are largely in my hands.

"In recent years I've read a select number of 'Self-Help' and popular psychology books and in truth I've taken something from just about all of them. Your 'little gem' of a book is right up there with the best of them. You're right of course, Life isn't tied with a bow, but it IS a GIFT.

"A long time ago a friend gave me a little card containing the following observation; "Every day is a good day; if you don't believe that, just try missing one." Thank you for being you and sharing the stories. Best Wishes, Chris."

Thank you, Chris, for sharing that gem of a lesson. Every day is a good one.

How do you decide what to tip?

What do you tip if you're broke?

Tonight on The Regina Brett Show, we're talking about holiday tips and tipping waiters, waitresses all year long. Steve Dublanica, author of Waiter Rant and Keep the Change, joins us. We also have Connie Schultz, columnist for Creators Syndicate and Parade magazine.

Connie won a Pulitzer Prize, based in part on her columns about tipping.

We'd love to hear from you, especially if you're a service worker whose livelihood depends on tips.

Call us at 888-957-8897 or email during the show: regina@wksu.org

Decorating? Check.

Cards mailed? Check.

Shopping? Check. Check. Check. Check. Check....

Feeling overwhelmed by it all?

Tune in tonight at 7 on "The Regina Brett Show" on WKSU 89.7 FM.

We'll help take some of the crazy out of Christmas.

Jean Staeheli, co-author of "Unplugging the Christmas Machine," will talk about how to simplify the holiday. She advises people to get to the heart of your values and do only what brings you the most meaning.

Andrew Shaffer, a contributor to the book, "The Atheist's Guide to Christmas" will talk about how to find meaning in the season no matter what you believe or don't believe.

Call in with questions or comments: 888-957-8897 or email regina@wksu.org

Every year, I try to pass it on.

My earliest memory of St. Nicholas Day comes from Immaculate Conception School in Ravenna. The nuns back then were tough, which made their sweet act stand out even more. I've sometimes referred to those 8 years of Catholic school as boot camp. The nuns who taught us had classrooms packed with 40 children. They must have been at their wits end many days, and like us, weren't always at their best.

But one day of the year, they made a true blessing for us.

I remember walking into the classroom every December 6 and finding a surprise on my desk. A candy cane. A little bag of treats. A sack of cookies.

At home, we'd get a little treat stuck in the shoes we placed outside our bedroom door before bed on Dec. 5. Usually a pack of gum or a roll of Lifesavers.

The nuns always remembered to give us a treat, too.

Some part of me knew they loved surprising us even more than my parents did. Some part of me knew it was because those women would never have children of their own to surprise on Christmas Day. They must have felt happy as elves passing out all those goodies to make us feel special.

It's a sweet tradition that I still pass on. Last night I was babysitting my grandbabies and left a present outside their doors. A little fingerpainting kit for Asher, a teething ring for Ainsley. Their parents got candy in their shoes next to their bed.

I love that it doesn't get lost in the mix of Christmas, the shopping, baking, wrapping, decorating.

It's just a moment, but sometimes something as small as a moment leaves an imprint that becomes a memory that lasts forever.

It fits in a stocking. It's easy to wrap. You can even cheat and read it before you give it. Just don't spill any coffee on it.

How do you decide which book to give everyone on your gift list?

Karen Long, the Plain Dealer's book editor, knows how to read people. She'll share her tips tonight at 7 p.m. on "The Regina Brett Show" on WKSU 89.7 FM.

We'll also have Liz Murphy, owner of The Learned Owl bookshop in Hudson and Suzanne DeGaetano owner of Mac's Backs in Cleveland Heights.

Call in with your comment or questions: 888-957-8897 or email regina@wksu.org

The story I love to tell most happened on Thanksgiving Day.

Ten years ago, I invited a friend to share Thanksgiving dinner with us. Sharon was pregnant, and not married...in the same situation I had been in at age 21. The morning of Thanksgiving, she called and asked if she could bring her brother to join us.

My parents always taught us to make room for more at the table. We had 11 children, but my parents always welcomed anyone who needed a home for the holidays.

One year, I brought a co-worker. Thrity's family lived in India.

One year, my brother brought a college friend. Eduardo's family lived in Costa Rica.

One year, my sister invited a friend whose family didn't celebrate holidays. So of course I said yes to Sharon.

On Thanksgiving Day, I opened the door to Sharon and met her brother, James, a handsome Irishman with stunning blue eyes.

Three years later, my daughter married him.

This year we'll welcome another person to the table. My new grand baby, Ainsley, who has the same blue eyes as her daddy and big brother, Asher. They'll sit near their aunt and cousin, and we'll all give thanks for that Thanksgiving Day.

It's less about what happens to you and more about how you respond to whatever happens to you.

Tonight at 7 p.m. on "The Regina Brett Show" we're having a live studio audience with Giving Thanks as the topic.

Jim Smith, who calls himself "The Executive Happiness Coach," joins us. He wrote the book, "Happiness at the Speed of Life."

He offers great tips:

Stop rubbernecking and comparing your life to everyone else.

Surround yourself with happy people.

Document your blessings.

Be a tourist in your own life and see it from new perspectives.

Be positively selfish. 

What does that mean? I'm not sure, but I'll ask him tonight. Tune in to 89.7 FM WKSU or listen later by podcast.

We'll also have Karen DeLuca, author of "Living Your Life in Gratitude." She has a whole list of tips on bringing more joy into life. 

A foster mom who took in hundreds of children will share how to spread that joy around. 

You can call in and share what you're most grateful for: 888-957-8897 or email regina@wksu.org

We were surrounded by veterans growing up. Every uncle served, and most of them in the war.

My mom's brother lied about his age and joined the Army when he was 16. He ended up in a German prisoner of war camp for three years. He lost part of his hearing from one beating. When he came to visit, we were kids raised on "Hogan's Heroes" and "F Troop." We didn't know much about real war. We thought it was cool to ask, "How many Germans did you kill?" Uncle Chuck, who had a loud hearty laugh, would get quiet, and just soflty say, "War isn't like you see on TV."

Then there was mom's brother Michael. The quiet man. He never spoke of war. He was one of the original Rangers. Darby's Rangers. They trained in secret and my mom didn't know where he was through most of the war, until the day the telegram came that he was being sent home. He had contracted malaria and nearly died.

My dad flew more than 30 missions as a tail gunner. I never quite knew what that meant until one day he took us to a tiny airport in Akron where they displayed old war planes. How in the world did my dad, all 6' 2" of him, squeeze into the back of that tiny plane? 

All my dad's pictures of the war show a row of tail gunners, most of them short guys, then that tall, thin drink of water, my dad, always a foot taller. We found out he asked to be a tail gunner so he could send more money back home to his poor family. The job was dangerous so it paid more.

My uncle Chuck, my Uncle Mike, my dad, they're all gone.

But other veterans are among us. Today, on the 11 hour of the 11 day of the 11 month, let us pause and give thanks for every single one of them. For guys who gave up the lives they planned for the lives they ended up living once they came back. For guys who still wake with shakes and terror from the jungles of Vietnam. For guys who left a part of their soul in Korea, Iraq,  Afghanistan. For the forgotten women who have served for decades.

Veterans who are now greeters at Wal Mart, grocery store baggers trying to earn a buck, homeless drifters whose inner demons can't be beat. Veterans who are now simply grandpa and grandma, mom and dad, the guy next door, the math teacher, the usher at church.

Pray for them all. Take the time to learn their stories, and if they don't want to share their stories, pray for them even harder.

"Eat food with purpose, on purpose."

That's the motto of Dr. Susan Albers, a psychologist at the Cleveland Clinic, who specializes in eating issues. She is the author of five books about Mindful Eating, the most recent being “But I Deserve This Chocolate:  the 50 most common diet-derailing excuses and how to outwit them."

She's joining us tonight at 7 on "The Regina Brett Show" on WKSU 89.7 FM to talk about mindful eating.

With the holiday treats just around the corner, we thought it would be good to be prepared.

We also have Sue Clarahan, a licensed and registered dietitian with a degree in Food and Nutrition. She owns Clarahan Consulting: Making Nutrition Sensible and Practical and helps clients find a balance and positive relationship with food and one’s body. Her personal motto is “great living through good eating!”

Ann Weinzimmer, an attorney with Jones Day in Cleveland, is chairperson of the junior advisory board at Westside Ecumenical Ministries (WSEM). She'll talk about the Food Stamp Challenge, a 7-day commitment that runs from Nov. 11-17 where people try to live on live on $31.04 a week, the average food stamp allocation for an individual.

Join the conversation. Call during the show: 888-957-8897 or email: regina@wksu.org.

Every so often an author came up to me and asked, "So how are you doing today? Has it been a successful day for you?"  I think they wanted to know, "So how many books have you sold?" 

For me, it's not a numbers game. It's sort of like anyone who makes it to the Big Leagues: you're just so grateful to be standing at home plate, you want to savor being there, not worry about your batting average.

Why do we write? For moments like this: A woman came up to my table and said she was sick last year at Thanksgiving and was all alone, but she really wasn't alone. "I had your book with me and read it all day," she said, as tears streamed down her face.

Wow. You think, It doesn't get better than that.

And then it does.

You open your email and read this from Jean K.:

"Just thought you might like to know.  I went to the funeral last week of a dear friend.  Her daughter spoke and relayed that before she died her mother gave her and her sisters a copy of your book 'God Never Blinks.'  As an ending to the eulogy she quoted the verse that ends in 'Be'.  It was touching."

She's referring to this, which always brings me peace:

Be still and know that I am God.

Be still and know that I am.

Be still and know.

Be still.

Be.

"My 14-year-old son and I were watching the Rangers play the Yankees when the Rangers' manager strode to the mound and asked the struggling rookie pitcher for the ball.

Looking disappointed, the young pitcher flipped the ball in the air and into the hand of manager Ron Washington. What we saw next was a class reaction to this Big No-No.

The manager gently grabbed the pitcher's arm and placed the ball back into his palm and politely, but firmly, told the rookie to "hand" him the ball.

I was very touched by Mr. Washington's way of getting his point across without dressing down the pitcher.

You don't see much of that in baseball anymore. I'm glad my son witnessed Ron Washington's graceful reaction to the frustrated rookie pitcher.

He was on his way to becoming a big league pitcher that day."

Thanks for sharing that. What makes us Big League players in the game of life are the small, powerful lessons like that.

On Sunday, I dropped off little bags of candy to every child on our street so they wouldn't feel neglected tonight. 

I just had to be at my grandbabies' house to watch them go Trick Or Treating.  Asher, who is 2, had insisted that he go as a tractor, Daddy go as a farmer, Baby Ainsley go as a cow and Mommy go as a hamster.

A hamster?

Mommy worked hard to turn boxes into a strap-on John Deere, complete with a steering wheel, headlights, and a red triangle Slow Moving Vehicle sign on the back. She bought a fluffy white fleece sleeper for Ainsley and sewed black felt blobs all over it to make her look like a Holstein calf.

Daddy ended up going as a football player. (I hope he can get that waterproof mascara off that he smudged under his eyes to look tough.) Mommy ended up wearing the tractor costume because Asher took it off as soon as they walked down the driveway. At least he kept on the straw hat so he looked like the farmer who owned the tractor.

They had a ball. So did I watching them run from house to house. Asher came back with a pumpkin bag full of candy. "Look!" he yelled as soon as he got home, then reached in and dug out a pile of brightly colored...leaves.

"Leaves! Leaves!" he said, so excited. They were so pretty he collected them along with the candy. He's never had candy, so he wasn't sure what all that stuff in the wrappers was. He was just excited to be part of the excitement.

The Kodak moment for me was watching him sit next to his mom on the steps eating cookies and milk together as the last of the kids stumbled home and the Halloween candles flickered in the breeze. Asher was grinning bigger than the smile on the pumpkin next to him.

I just read this one from Nicole:

"Hi Regina! my name is Nicole, 17 and I'm from Monterrey, Mexico. About 2 weeks ago I went to the book fair of my city hoping that a book would find me. I wanted something about love, something magical, something exceptional."

"As I was walking I saw your book. The word that got me was God. The title is amazing." (Good, because I was worried putting 'God' in the title might scare some people away.)

"This night I have already finish it and the book is an amazing chocolate cake. I absolutely adore it. It understands me, it helps me, it gives me so much. Your journey it's a story worth telling and I'm very grateful for your words. Thank you, thank you from the bottom of my heart and soul. I will do the lessons for the rest of my life."

Oh, Nicole, thank YOU from the bottom, top and middle of my heart for calling my book "amazing chocolate cake." That just might be the highest -- and most delicious -- praise I've ever received.

You don't see the author perched at a microphone in a studio wearing a headset reading for hour after hour, page after page, tripping over words and having to backtrack every few sentences to smooth out the bumpy words or missed ones. That person in the headset is silently reading along with you on the other end, probably in New York City, making sure you pronounce and enunciate every word correctly.

It sounds easy to create an audiobook. Just sit at a microphone and read your book aloud. I just finished taping "Be the Miracle: 50 Lessons for Making the Impossible Possible." It took two days from 9 to 4 p.m. sitting in a radio studio just reading. Over and over and over. I think it's the only two days in my life that I came home and didn't want to read anything. Or talk.

Two things kept me focused, and, I hope, sounding fresh and inspiring. Ainsley and Asher.

I put a framed picture of each grandchild in front of me both days and pretended I was reading to them.

Someday I hope they get to listen to the book. I plan to put a copy of the audiobook into the time capsules I made for them. Since they're only 2 and three months old right now, it'll probably seem like an ancient relic by the time they're grown.

I can hear them now: "What's a CD?"

Yes, little Ravenna High School has one. I didn't know until I got the call.

My grade school Immaculate Conception was torn down. My high school was closed and a new one opened. Then I find myself in the Hall of Fame. 

Am I getting old or what?

It was a delightful night at the Ravenna Elks Club. My mom, my brother, Tom, and his wife, Tish, came to celebrate. My husband, Bruce, introduced me.

They gave each inductee just two minutes to speak. How do you thank a whole town for raising you in two minutes?

I wanted to thank Mr. Maske, my choir teacher, who taught me to make every day joyful.

Mr. Roberto, my biology teacher, who reminded me weekly: "There's no such thing as a free lunch, Brett."  Mr. Ricco, my 9th grade English teacher, who taught me to love words.

I needed to thank all the neighbors on Sycamore Street for keeping our neighborhood safe and fun and for giving us their leftover candy at Halloween. The Ciprianos, Triscorris, Profios, Policanos and Cunninghams loved us as their own.

I wanted to mention those hard workers at Darwal furniture factory four houses down and Rotek ball bearing plant five houses up for working so hard to feed their families, guys like Mr. Mendiola who walked a mile to work every day because a disability kept him from driving. What dedication.

I did get to mention a few of the people that leave imprints on your heart, guys like Hank Irussi, who walked all over town and lived at the library. The caboose man, who waved to us from the tracks behind our house and always threw us candy. The librarians, who fed us food for our hearts, minds and souls.

Small towns like Ravenna are full of people who make a big difference.

You don't really go back to your roots. When you have strong ones like the ones they gave me, those roots are always with you, holding you firm, long after the caboose has disappeared.

Where do you fall in that percent? What is middle class? Working class?

I grew up blue collar. Dad was a sheet metal worker. Mom worked raising 11 children. We never talked about being working class. I figured everyone worked like my dad, since we lived in a house by the railroad tracks with a ball bearing plant four houses down on one corner and a furniture factory five house down on the other end.

We're exploring class on The Regina Brett Show tonight at 7 on WKSU 89.7 FM. Our guests are:

Sherri Linkon and John Russo from the Center for Working Class Studies at Youngstown State University. Chris Evans, who is on the editorial board at The Plain Dealer, also joins us. Rob Walgate from the American Policy Roundtable will also be on the show.

How many classes do we have in America? Someone said just two:

The rich and the rest.

Where do you fall in the mix?

Call the show at 888-957-8897 or email during the hour at regina@wksu.org.

Hope you join us.

My dad tried to teach me but kept grabbing the steering wheel to get the car back in the center of the lane. In drivers ed class, the teacher took us to the cemetery to learn our turns. Great place to learn to drive, it makes you face where you could end up if you drive recklessly.

The sad thing is, car crashes are the leading cause of death for 15 to 20 year olds; 16-year-olds have the highest crash rate of any other driver.

Tonight at 7 on The Regina Brett Show on WKSU 89.7 FM we're talking about teen drivers.

Ray Sanderbeck will talk about his daughter, Michelle, who died in a car accident five years ago when a teen driver lost control of the car.

Dan Cox, manager of Heights Driving School in Richmond Heights, will share his best tips. He's been teaching drivers ed for 28 years. 

Nathan Krug, who was named Trooper of the Year at the Ravenna Post of the Ohio State Highway Patrol, will share his concerns.

Beatriz Luna from the School of Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh will talk about her research on the adolescent brain.

And Bill Vainisi from Allstate Insurance will talk about the STANDUP Act that calls for uniform driving standards across the country.

Call in and share your story. We're at 888-957-8897 or email us regina@wksu.org

At what age should a person be allowed to drive? What kind of training should they get? How can we better protect everyone on the road, especially teenagers?

If you miss the show live, you can listen later by podcast at www.wksu.org/regina

Tell me why...

Did you ever notice...

Andy Rooney signed off on Sunday for the last time on 60 Minutes. I'll miss the old grouch. They described him this way: He had "the demeanor of an unmade bed." And giant ears to match giant eyebrows that hung like thunderclouds over his eyes.

He piled his desk full of pill bottles and yanked out the cotton and asked the question we've all wanted answered: Why in the world do they stuff cotton in there?

Here are some of his best quotes:

"Anyone who watches golf on television would enjoy watching the grass grow on the greens."

"If dogs could talk it would take a lot of the fun out of owning one."

"The 50-50-90 rule: Anytime you have a 50-50 chance of getting something right, there's a 90% probability you'll get it wrong"

"If you smile when no one else is around, you really mean it." 

"I didn't get old on purpose, it just happened. If you're lucky, it could happen to you."

We're lucky it happened to him. Andy, we didn't always agreed with you, but we enjoyed the ride. Thanks for making us smile every time we see that cotton in the pill bottle.

.  

She was all elbows and freckles just yesterday. Now she's stunning and turning heads.

My big sister, Theresa, plans to buy a T-shirt for Laura's dad. She alread got one for my brother, who has three daughters. It reads:

                                                 D.A.D.D.

                              Dads Against Daughters Dating

Then my little grandbaby, who is only two months old, hit a milestone. Little Ainsley rolled over yesterday. Look out world. Before you know it, she'll be off to homecoming, too.

Wish we could slow down the spinning of the world. I want to savor these girls while they're still girls.

Planning for your funeral and final days seems a bit morose, but it’s actually a great gift to give your family.

Last year my mom sat down and told me what she wanted for her funeral, right down to the readings and songs. She filled out paperwork the church gave her and has it on file so we will all know her wishes.

Tonight at 7 on “The Regina Brett Show” on WKSU 89.7 FM, the topic is “Graceful Exit.”

Sheryl Harris, Plain Dealer Consumer Columnist, and one of my dearest friends, will share tips on how to leave your affairs in order.

Kevin O’Brien, a Life-Cycle Celebrant, will tell how to turn a funeral into a celebration of life. 

Chip Billow, President of Billow Funeral Homes and Crematory, will talk about changing trends.

Charlotte Eulette, International Director of the Celebrant Foundation and Institute, a non-profit educational organization headquartered in New Jersey, will share how to create a ceremony to best mark someone’s passing.

You can call in with questions or comments at 888-957-8897 or email during the show: regina@wksu.org

We’re also going to talk about how to give a eulogy. What would you want said in your eulogy?

I just read this email sent by John, a 32-year-old Clevelander and lawyer:

"Your column from a month or so ago on Steve Jobs and the fact that we are mortal was as great a piece I have ever read. If I could give a personal Pulitzer, you would win for that column.

"The reason why it home so well is that a bunch of us passed the article around the family lounge of the Cleveland Clinic G Building 10th floor. My Mom, Mary, was a patient there, battling a rare liver disease.

"I actually took the article into her room and read it to her. It was as if your words were written specifically to her and my family.

"It gave us strength and reinforced truths we've always known, but sometimes need to be restated.

"My Mom passed away Sunday night. Her death notice is in today's paper. When I cleaned out her room I found next to her slippers and robe, your column  She kept it, and probably re-read it every night. I thought you would want to know that.

"Thanks for the powerful positive influence of your words."

I share John's words as a reminder that we never know the ripples we send out into the world and the lives they reach.

I spent a long weekend in New Hampshire at Camp Robin Hood in Freedom, New Hampshire. Freedom, the perfect name for the Breathe retreat for women.

We exhaled our old stories, got rid of the victims and villains in our lives.

We inhaled our new stories, fresh insights, love and laughter.

Lauren Walker taught me yoga tips that include energy medicine work. She had me pounding on my chest like a gorilla. It really works to get energy flowing. She taught me the essence of a yoga practice: Each pose offers you a challenge to keep breathing through it all. Then, no matter what life throws at you, you just keep breathing and you'll be fine.

The retreat offered endless choices. We could hike, bike, swim, sail, canoe, kayak, shoot rifles, do archery, woodshop, yoga, volleyball, spin, paint or play ga ga.

Somehow I ended up in the rifle range and on the archery field. There I discovered how to hit a bull's eye on the target and in life: Use your breath as your guide and stay focused.

The circle of friends that gathered for discussions and meals and play taught me that I don't want a wider life, I want a deeper life. I don't need any more branches. I don't need to accomplish more things as a measure of my worth. I want simply to grow the roots of my life deeper and embrace all I am and all I have. 

The best way to do that is sink into the present moment, and breathe.

I'm guilty of using the same words over and over to describe everything from fries to a sunset:

Great. Awesome. Wow. Incredible. Cool. Amazing.

Here are some other expressions that cause people to shriek:

Way better.

Way nicer.

Like, you know, like, whatever.

Dude.

It is what it is.

You know? I know.

Really?

Just sayin.

At the end of the day

My bad.

Between you and I.

We talked about language tonight on The Regina Brett Show on WKSU 89.7 FM.

If you missed, it you can listen by podcast.

Arthur Plotnik, author of "Better than Great: A plenitudinous compendium of wallopingly fresh superlatives" suggests we become word adventurers and try out new options.

This week I'm going to try to use some of his suggestions.

No more amazing or awesome. I'll say, Oscar-worthy, finger-licking fabulous, so great it's almost wrong.

No more beautiful or lovely. I'll say, dangerously handsome, feloniously stacked, eyeballs, behave!

For food, I'll try out grubalicious, paradise on a plate and heaven on a fork.

Can't wait to give it a try. It'll be awesome.

Oops.

Writer Annie Dillard once wrote, How we spend our days is how we spend our lives.

I thought of that quote as I prepared my remarks for the Content Marketing Conference in Cleveland this week. The conference was a great event, attended by more than 500 people.

I’ve been a journalist for 27 years. We used to have readers. Now we have customers. We used to tell stories. Now we offer content.

Content.

What exactly does that mean?

Content is too vague a word. What is content? Facts. Data. Information. Links. Ideas. Tweets. Blogs. Emails. Posts.

My talk was about how to tell stories. I think there’s still a place for story telling, now more than ever. Social media shouldn’t leave us feeling like we’re filling an endless hole with information. Our job as “content providers” isn’t to throw everything against the wall and see what sticks or to record everything as if we were court stenographers. We aren’t advancing or enhancing anyone’s life by presenting fact blurbs or mindless trivia.

I urged the audience to create and share content that is meaningful and memorable. Content that matters. The essence of the content is what matters, what makes the difference. Before sending out a tweet or text or blurb on your Facebook or blog, ask;

Is what you’re putting out there worth your life?

Is what you’re putting out there worth the lives of others?

Because people are taking the time to read your posts and tweets and web content. They are giving you minutes of their life. Minutes away from family, hobbies, friends. Precious minutes of life, which add up to hours and days over time.

Every time you write a blog post or send a tweet or post something anywhere, make sure it’s worth your time and the time of those reading it.

If you can, tell a story.  Hemingway once boasted he could tell a story in six words, then did:  For Sale. Baby shoes. Never worn.

Want to be immortal? A story does that.

That’s the power of stories.

That was clear tonight when I gave a talk to 80 people at The Gathering Place who have cancer. I shared how journaling can help. Women with bald heads wiped away tears. People who just finished treatment shared their funniest cancer moment. People who are just starting chemo shared their deepest fears.

We all shared the hope that words offer. We shared the power of stories. Stories that will keep us immortal.

Try blind dates. Speed dating. Craigslist. Plenty of Fish. Flirt with everyone. Get the new phone app SceneTap to locate the hottest bars. Hire a dating coach.

Those are all fine options.

My advice?

Stop looking.

Yes, I'm serious.

Build a life that is so good being alone, if you attract someone, great, if you don't, it's still a great life. When you focus on building a better you simply for you, you will attract more of the same. 

That's how I found my husband. I stopped looking.

I had spent years searching for Mr. Right and settling for Mr. Right Now. It took five years of counseling to park and unpack the U-Haul of the past that was dragging me down and detouring my life. If you keep dating the same person (but with different names) take a look at how he or she matches up to your mom and dad. It'll scare you right into therapy. That's a good place to unpack the U-haul.

Once I did that, I could date without all that extra baggage weighing us both down. I could trust that life would bring to me the perfect match for me alone. There was no more desperation. No more settling for less than I deserved and wanted. No competition with all other single people looking.

I started believing that there was someone for me alone, who would love me as is. Not just tolerate my flaws, but celebrate the mystery of me, flaws and all.

We've been together for 18 years. He still calls me his forever girlfriend. His love hasn't waivered, not even when I got cancer and lost my hair and my breasts and walked around bald for six months. "We're in this for the long haul," he always says.

Here are my best tips for finding your forever boyfriend or girlfriend:

Availability: He or she has to be available or there is no starting point. That means they aren't married, gay if you're straight, in a religious order that requires celibacy, actively feeding a drug or alcohol addiction or living across the world.

A light traveler: Carry-on baggage only. If he or she hasn't dealt with mom and dad and all the exes left in Texas, make a U-turn as soon as you see that U-Haul of the past. You need two whole people if you want a whole relationship.

Clean house: Get your own house in order before you set up house with anyone. Do you have all those qualities that you demand in a mate? Remember, you might attract what you are.

Listen: Pay attention to what is said and unsaid, but mostly to what is done: There's an old saying, Believe everything a man does, not what he says. The same holds true for women. Mostly though, listen to that small still voice inside of you, that inner compass, to find out what feels most right.

Practice: Every date is just practice. Relax before every first date and tell yourself, This is just a practice date. The bigger it bombs, the better story you have to tell one day.

Love yourself: If you love yourself, you don't show up starving in the relationship. You're already filled and have something to offer. A relationship isn't 50/50. You don't give 50 percent. In the best ones, you each give 100 percent.

Believe: B'shert is a Jewish concept that roughly translates to "meant to be." Before you were born, you received a match. You don't need to turn yourself inside out to find it. Be you and you will attract that person you are destined to be with.

Keep your heart open, relax and trust that more love is on its way. 

He was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer 7 years ago and was given 6 months to live.

He beat all the odds. He cheated cancer for the longest time. Unfortunately, his time is now running out. 

What an incredible life he has lived. This is a guy born to an unwed mother, given up for adoption. A guy who dropped out of college to take only the courses he found most interesting. He started Apple in his adoptive parents' garage when he was 20. He got fired from the company at 30. He calls that the best thing that happened to him.

Failure can free you up to leap into life. You can risk everything because you literally have nothing to lose.

He does something every morning that I want to start doing. He asks himself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I'm about to do today?"

What would your answer be? Most days, mine would be yes. But that's because I got cancer 13 years ago. The scars on my chest remind me that I have an expiration date. I hope it's decades from now,  but no one knows. 

If you haven't seen it, you've got to watch his commencement address at Stanford University from 2005. He ends it by telling the graduates, "Your time is limited so don't waste it living someone else’s life."

Whose life are you living?

 People applauded during it and burst into spontaneous refrains, cheering on the help at various parts in the movie, especially when Minnie serves up her special pie.

 The movie and the book really make you see world through different skin. The novel by Kathryn Stockett tells about black women in the 60s who cleaned, cooked and cared for the babies of white women in Jackson, Mississippi.

                 Aibileen teaches little Mae to love her self by constantly telling her, “You is kind. You is smart. You is important.”

                 I love when Skeeter's momma tells her, "Sometimes courage skips a generation." You hope you're part of the generation it landed in.

                The tagline to the movie is, "Change begins with a whisper." This movie is about speaking truth to power, finding your voice and living the power of you.

               Skeeter's mom has great advice for us all: Go find your life.

My advice is always the same: write, write, write.

Long before I wrote a book, I wrote columns and news stories. Before that, I wrote in endless journals and diaries. There are stacks of them, some 200 of them, in my office at home.

If you could capture scales on a piano or voice warm up excercises on paper, that's what you'd find in these journals.  Practice writing. What needed to be said before the world would actually hear my voice.

Write what you need to write first. Get it all out. Then find out if the world needs to hear it. Is there an audience who needs your voice? Your story? Your insights?

She also said, "I am a writer because writing is the thing I do best."

If writing is the thing you do best, keep moving the pen, keep pounding away on the keyboard, keep playing your scales and strengthening your voice.

You'll know when the day is ready for the world to hear you sing. A door will swing wide open and the wind will call your name.

Family reunions are highly underrated. If your family has one, go. If you don’t have one, create one.

We had our annual reunion in July. I have 42 first cousins on my Dad’s side, so we always get a crowd.

Even without half of the family present, we filled the shelter with 45 of us. My Aunt Barbara, who turned 80 this year, was the oldest there and the youngest at heart. She even won a prize in the bubble gum blowing contest.

My grandson, Asher, who turned 2 this year, wore his shades, the ones he wears on his forehead during dinner in his highchair when he tells his parents, “Park it in the shade.” He was a hit.

We split up the duties and all brought enough food to feed a Marine Corps battalion. We made my cousin Caitlin our official CEO of Fun. She brought a cooler of water balloons for a toss that, of course, turned into a water balloon fight. We also had a three-legged race.

This was our first reunion without our Aunt Kate, who died this year. She was the last of my dad’s original family of 10 siblings. We saw her Irish eyes smiling in her children and grandchildren.

At the end of the day, we left fat, tired and happy. We knew that glow in the sky wasn’t from the sun. It was from our aunts and uncles smiling down on us, grateful to us all for carrying on this great tradition.

I still miss Joseph-Beth and those cool door handles shaped like books. They always made it feel like you were opening a door into a world of books that could take you anywhere.

We're losing so many bookstores so fast. What is the future of the book?

We're talking about that on The Regina Brett Show this Wednesday at 7 p.m. on WKSU 89.7 FM. You can listen by podcast at www.wksu.org/regina

Readers are mourning and keep emailing me to share their grief. Michael Laughrin sent me a poem he wrote called Borders:

Temple,

School,

Social club,

Hunger fixer,

Heaven on Earth place

Happiness,

Joy,

Escape mode par excellence

Open magazines,

100,000 books,

Intellectual meeting place

Feeding place.

Home of:

Mind flying,

Soul exalted,

Tummy happy,

Sandwiches salted.

It is like a wondrous spaceship,

A starship par excellence

That carries me away,

Effortlessly,

To that place beyond

Where there is only wonder,

Openness,

Clarity

And Infinity.

 Thanks, Michael, for speaking for us all.

Yesterday it showed the temperature outside was 101 degrees. Yikes!

Yes, we are Hot in Cleveland. Fortunately, we have air conditioning in the house. Unfortunately, we only have it in one room. The bedroom is our refuge. It's like stepping into an oven when you leave that sanctuary.

I still prefer the heat of summer over winter. There are a million and one things you can do to beat the heat, but the best one is to change your attitude about it. Take a look at the snow shovel in the garage. Put the snow brush next to you in the passenger seat as a friendly reminder of what will soon come.

Ah, it's not so bad after all. A temperature of 101 degrees? In celsius, it's a mere 38.3 degrees.

What's in your big yellow bucket?

I love when readers share their joyberries. Ashley wrote: 

"This morning my family and I were heading to Dayton, Ohio to spend the day with my Aunt for the fourth of July. We stopped at a McDonalds to grab some breakfast and when we pulled around to the cashier to pay for our order she told us to have a blessed day and that the individual in the car ahead of us had paid for our meal.

This random act of kindness touched my heart in a way that is hard to explain. In a world where most people find it so hard to trust people, especially those we are not familiar with, it is nice to see that the love and kindness God shows us is still apparent within people.

I actually just finished reading your book God Never Blinks on my way back to Columbus this evening, and I just wanted to thank you for writing this piece. It was truly a blessing for me to read, and is something I look forward to passing around my family and friends.

I am twenty-one years old and will be a junior this fall in college. I am also a collegiate basketball player and have struggled with motivation not only to complete my college career as a basketball player, but also with my relationship with God. Luckily both are becoming much easier as I become more and more comfortable with the life God has given me. Your book has also aided me in my love for God, others, life, and myself.

Thank you very much, and I pray that God continues showering blessings through you and other's with the heart and passion for life and love."

Thank you, Ashley, for filling my bucket today.

For nine long months the gift is hidden. A masterpiece in the making. A unique mix of genes and blood and cells that will turn into the child that will steal our hearts away.

We welcomed her into the world at 7:02 a.m. all 7 pounds and 2 ounces of her. Petal soft skin. Sharp tiny fingernails no bigger than snowflakes. Eyes squeezed tight against the light and air and sounds of this brave new world.

Ainsley Veronica Sullivan.

We have loved you from the moment we heard you existed. Before we knew you were the girl in "It's a girl!" Before we felt your tiny hand wrap around our finger. Before you whimpered your first hello. Before you yawned and sighed and let your perfect pink mouth fall open as you slept in our arms.

A daughter. A sister. A granddaughter. A girl.

One day a woman. A bride. A mother. And anything, anything you want to become.

The world is yours and ours to share, to open wide.

We already have, starting with our hearts.

"When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

I just love those words. And these: 

 "We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor."

Would you have pledged as much?  God bless all those who did and do.

My daughter moved on Monday. She and her husband outgrew the cute arts and craft bungalow where they lived for 7 years. They have a 2-year-old and a baby due any day and needed a better floor plan to run after two children.

Talk about crazy, buying and selling a house and moving when you are pregnant and have a toddler. Just proves that life is one big roller coaster ride of thrills.

I got to host them all for a few sleepovers, which I loved. My grandson Asher kept saying, "Asher party slumber at Gita and Pappa's."

Home really is where your heart is. It was in their old house until their hearts left. Their new home -- just 3.4 miles from my house -- felt like home the moment Asher ran in and saw everything they owned unpacked.

He ran from room to room then shoutted with glee, "All my toys are here!"

I love how so many important moments in the Bible start with those words: Fear not!

No matter how much faith I have, fear still seems to sneak into my daily life. My brain manufactures it. There are three shifts working overtime in my head pumping it out. As my friend Aaron says, "My brain is trying to kill me."

This morning while exercising I listened to Joyce Meyer talk about fear. My friend Suellen, who is Jewish, introduced me to Meyer. You don't have to be a Christian to soak up the wisdom and hope Meyer offers.

The topic of the show was fear. I expected Meyer to focus on faith and prayer. Instead, she said it's time to be bold. Instead of giving in to fear, be bold today. Act stronger, bolder, bigger.

So I'm going to practice living more boldly. Try it with me and let me know how it works for you.

Any time fear sneaks in, put on your bold. Fear is a question mark. Bold is an exclamation point. Let's start living like we're invincible. Because when it comes to a life of the spirit, we are.

A reader named Nancy recently sent this email:

"I think I can consider myself a cancer survivor now. I started chemotherapy for Non-Hodgkins-Lymphoma in July 2010 and completed it in November.

"Hair is coming back but I looked at your picture and saw how great your hair looked and wondered about how long it takes to come back.

"I am reading "GOD NEVER BLINKS" and love all the lessons we can learn from it. I felt thankful to get through the chemo and continue to live a normal life. Most days I actually forget I am a survivor."

First, thanks, Nancy for sharing a bit of your story. It always takes courage to share with someone your cancer journey.

Second, you can call yourself a survivor the minute you hear that dreaded C word. I used to think you had to wait until the last chemo or radiation or til you had a full head of hair and no longer looked like a patient.

You are a survivor all along. From the moment you are diagnosed until they put you in the grave decades from now, when, hopefully, you die of old age after a joyful healthy life.

As for the hair, it took me six months to have enough to call it hair. I walked around boldly bald. Do what is comfortable for you. The main thing is, you are still here. After all you have been through, you are alive this bright, shining day. Live the hell out of it!

Me, I don't want to ever forget I'm a survivor. Every morning my scars remind me, in a wonderful way, that today is the day I am living in. Not tomorrow. Not yesterday. Just today, fully, and blissfully alive.

A woman recently sent this email:

“My married life had many ups and downs but we made it through all of them and although things were far from perfect, they were manageable. After 26 years of marriage, my husband had an affair with a woman he worked with.

He spent a year and a half acting like nothing had happened. I was expected to be okay with them seeing each other and talking on the phone. He would not leave when I asked him, saying he had every right to our home as I did. Friends were telling me to stay put. We have a daughter, 22 and a son 16 and it was them who caught their father with this woman at our family cottage. It was devastating and still is.

It has been almost 2 years of the worse possible hell I have ever been through. I finally have to figure out who I am and what I want to do. I am ALWAYS looking out for others and have never done for myself.

I found your book and had it finished in a week. The lessons were wonderful, I could relate to many of them. I just want to say thank you for your words."

            What would you tell her?

            Here’s what I told her:

Ann Landers used to ask readers one question when it came to cheating spouses: Are you better off with him or without him? Only you can decide. No one else.

As for your children, the best thing you can give them is an example. Role model for them what it means to be a loving mother and wife and a strong woman who doesn't let people push her around. It could be the best thing for them to see you build up enough inner strength and financial strength to walk away from this marriage.

No one deserves to be mistreated, to be lied to or cheated on. Dr. Phil is fond of saying, "We train people how to treat us." How do you want to be treated? Start attracting that.

Claim your power and start using it to make your own life better, no matter what your husband does. Your first vow is to yourself, to love and cherish YOU all the days of your life.

How old are you? The one with long hair asks like it's a demand, not a question. She's all of 9. Her friend is 9 1/2. Correction, she explains that she actually turns 9 1/2 in July but she really wants to seem older.

"You can't be a gramma," they both tell me. "You're too young."

How old do you think I am? I ask.

"Twenty?" one says.

"You look really young," the other says.

When I tell them I'm 55 their eyes bug out. I find out their names are Serena and Morgan. Serena is a pistol. She demands to know my secret.

"What's your moisturizer?" she asks. "That must be it."

My moisturizer? How funny. We spend the next 15 minutes giggling like girls.

Whoever said youth is wasted on the young was never 9. Or 9 1/2.

That's what my sister-in-law Chris calls our shared age.

I turned 55 this week. I feel younger than ever, thanks to my 2-year-old grandson. Asher has introduced me to this brand new world he's discovering daily. The best birthday gift I got was his voice on my phone singing, "Happy birthday to Gita."

I love that he made up an original name for me. I was all set to be called Gramma and even encouraged it. Being a grandma doesn't make me feel old. It gives me new energy and reasons to stay in shape to keep up with him. But he wouldn't say Gramma. He came up with Gita, which means song. Maybe he picked it because I love to sing to him.

He loved helping me unwrap presents. He would tear a corner, then get all giggly and say, "What's inside? I don't know!" What fun. I felt like a kid again.

One of my favorite life lessons is The Best is Yet to Come. That keeps coming true every year. Each birthday I reflect on the blessings in my life, and each year there are more.  With Asher, each day there are more.

Reading the The Help made me see the world through different skin.

The novel by Kathryn Stockett tells the stories of black maids in the 60s living in Jackson, Mississippi. These women take orders, hold their tongues, swallow their bitterness and hug their love and hopes into the white babies they raise.

            The story isn’t black and white. “There is an undisguised hate for white women, there is inexplicable love,” Stockett writes.

            Her words touch the heart: “Faye Bell, palsied and gray-skinned, cannot remember her own age. Her stories unfold like soft linen.”

            Aibileen loves little Mae in ways her white mother can’t or won’t.

            “I look deep into her rich brown eyes and she look into mine. Law, she got old-soul eyes, like she done lived a thousand years. And I swear I see, down inside, the woman she gone grow up to be. A flash from the future. She is tall and straight. She is proud. She got a better haircut.

And she is remembering the words I put in her head. Remembering as a full-grown woman.

            And then she say it, just like I need her to. “You is kind,” she say. “You is smart. You is important.”

            “Oh, Law.” I hug her hot little body to me. I feel like she done just given me a gift. “Thank you, Baby Girl.”

            “You’re welcome,” she say, like I taught her to.”

            The movie version comes out in August. Check out the trailer. I hope them movie is as good as the book. If so, bring tissues.

Oprah packed her last show full of wisdom from 25 years, 4,561 shows and 30,000 people she's talked to during her career.

Someone once said, if you had one chance to shout your truth from the rooftops, what would you say? That's what Oprah did for her last show. It's a show I will save and watch often.

Here's the essence of Oprah:

We are all called. Figure out what your calling is and get about the business of doing it. Your calling is what lights you up and let's you know exactly what you are supposed to be doing. What sparks the light in you so in your own way you can illuminate the world?

Let your life speak for you.

Forget fame. Aim for service.

Carry whatever you're supposed to be doing and carry it forward.

You are responsible for the energy you create.

You are not alone, no matter what you have been through or are going through, you are not alone.

Feel worthy enough to own the life you were created for. Too often we block our own blessings because we don't feel good enough or smart enough or pretty enough or worthy enough. You are worthy because you were born.

Your life is speaking to you. What is it saying?

She ended the show by saying she wouldn't say goodbye. "I'll say until we meet again. To God be the glory."

Thank you, Oprah, for helping us be our best selves.

Hitch your wagon to a star. Walk to the beat of a different drummer. Wear sunscreen..

Grads will hear all kinds of advice on commencement day.

But how does one really find and fulfill their mission on earth?

The best tips I ever got was from the book What Color is Your Parachute? by Richard Bolles. After reading the book and doing all the exercises in it, I knew I wanted to be a writer.

The Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren helped me recognize my S.H.A.P.E. He talks about knowing your Spiritual gifts, your unique set of abilities God gave you. Heart, the passion God gave you. The Abilities, the set of talents you alone have. Your Personality, the special way God wired you. And finally, your Experiences, all of them. The good, the bad, the ugly can be used to help others.

And Steven Covey's advice to start with the end in sight. At the end of it all, what do you want to have accomplished? What do you want said at your eulogy? If you could write a letter from your 90 year old self to your current self, what would you say?

I keep a quote by St. Francis of Assisi on my desk that reads:

"Keep a clear eye toward life's end. Do not forget your purpose and destiny as God's creature. What you are in His sight is what you are and nothing more.

"Do not let worldy cares and anxieties or the pressures of office blot out the divine life in you or the voice of God's Spirit guiding your great task of leading humanity to wholeness."

What a great mission we all have. To lead humanity to wholeness.

Her husband, former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, just announced to the world that he fathered a child with someone who worked in their home. The woman retired after 20 years with his family. The child was born over ten years ago.

I feel for Maria. She recently lost her dad, mom and uncle, now her husband. It must feel like her world has imploded. What betrayal. What loss. How much can one person take?

A dear friend of mine was married 29 years when her husband had an affair. She did her best to love him and be patient and see if she could repair the marriage. He couldn't choose between her and the other woman.  It was the most painful betrayal of all, especially after raising three children together. My friend finally kicked him out.

She's never been happier. She's finally free.

I still wonder why her ex can't bring himself to apologize to her and their three children, to sit down and make real amends to them, to do everything possible to heal the hurt and right the wrongs. An affair requires more than an apology. It requires an amends. That involves an honest admission of wrong, a sincere apology and a willingness to repair whatever damage is repairable. 

I can understand how people can fall in love and cheat on their spouse, but I don't understand why they don't acknowledge the hurt and harm it does to others and try to fix it.

The child that Arnold fathered also deserves more than an anonymous support check in the mail. That child deserves to know his dad without any shame. The child did nothing wrong.

My friend and fellow columnist Connie Schultz wrote a piece for the New York Times about Maria Shriver. Connie is confident Maria will continue to write her own life script.

I hope Maria Shriver will experience this marriage breakdown as a breakthrough. She deserves better. I hope she gets to the freedom part, like my friend did, and her soul just soars.

Margaret Roach traded in the fast lane for a dirt road. She left the glamour of New York City and her job as editorial director of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia and took up organic gardening. She writes "A Way to Garden" blog that inspires others to coexist with nature and live close to the earth.

As she describes it, "She went from She Who Lives in the World to She Who Lives in the Woods." She pulled her own rug out from under herself. She had to be still and listen to that voice within to forge a new path.

She's loving her new life. You can read about it in her book, "And I Shall Have Some Peace There: Trading in the fast lane for my own dirt road."

What would it mean to live as your authentic, true self? Find out.

Join us for a conversation on How to Reinvent Yourself on "The Regina Brett Show" this Wednesday at 7 p.m. on WKSU 89.7 FM. Margaret will be joining us and you can talk to her by calling 888-957-8897 or you can email her questions and comments at regina@wksu.org

As Mark Twain said, "Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover."

The boat leaves on Wednesday at 7.

You breathe your very life into your children, they're formed by your own blood and food, your heartbeat and breath. The moment you deliver them into the world, you begin an endless series of letting go.

Step by step, breath by breath, you release a child into the world. Erma Bombeck compared it to letting out string on a kite, you release more and more string until one day, the kite soars on its own. Only then do you know that you did your job. 

In my Mother's Day column for The Plain Dealer, I share some of the journey I took with my daughter and see her take with her son. Watching her both hold on and let go of him is teaching me a new lesson:

Get to know the woman who healed your boo-boos with a kiss, sang you to sleep and scared away the monsters under the bed, the woman who brought you into this world and threatened to take you out if you didn't stop running with scissors, teasing your brother and staying out past curfew.

Do you know…

Which earrings are her favorite?

What her high school nickname was?

Her favorite movie?

Her biggest challenge in life?

Her biggest heartache?

How she met the man she married?

Can you name . . .

Her favorite song?

Her first pet's name?

The street she grew up on?

The perfume that is her trademark scent?

Her first crush?

The old flame that left a burning ember in her heart?

Her closest, dearest friend ever?

Her biggest pet peeve?

Which country she wants to visit most?

Her favorite recipe?

Her favorite restaurant?

Do you know . . .

The boldest thing she has ever undertaken?

Her middle name?

The worst trouble she ever got into as a child?

Who taught her to drive?

The best advice she ever got?

Her greatest regret?

Does she prefer . . .

Coffee or tea?

Cats curled up at her feet or dogs snoring by her bedside?

Diamonds or pearls?

Brooches or bracelets?

Dining out or home-cooked meals?

Do you know . . .

How old she was when she got her first kiss?

What she wants on her tombstone?

The most important line she wants in her obituary?

Her biggest fear?

The prayer she uses most often?

Her first job?

Her favorite TV show?

Her most prized possession?

Her favorite story?

Which dreams remain unfulfilled?

What she wants to be remembered for?

The results?

If you think you know your mother, compare your answers with hers. If they're close, chances are you're close, too.

If not, give your mom the greatest gift of all. Take time to get to know her.

Osama Bin Laden had been killed by U.S. forces in Pakistan. The president never looked more presidential as he made the announcement last night on TV.

At first I felt elated. The man who masterminded the attack on our country and other countries around the world was dead. Hurray!

Then I felt a surge of patriotism. God bless the USA!

 But when I saw footage of youthful Americans dancing and cheering in the streets of New York City and Washington D.C., it didn't seem right.

A stillness came over me that hasn't left. 

I can't celebrate the death of any human being, no matter how heinous their crimes, no matter how many victims they murdered, no matter what destruction they leveled. I'm glad that we stopped this man from harming any more people, but I can't cheer his death.

What do we do? What is a respectful response to his death? What is the best way to remember all those who lost their lives in terrorist attacks and in this war on terrorism?

I think we're all called to pray for peace, that peace that surpasses all understanding.

I woke up before the alarm went off. I wanted to be part of a worldwide celebration of love, romance and beauty.

I wanted to be there rooting for William because his mom wasn't. Didn't it just tug at your heart to see those boys so grown up and realize how much their mom missed?

I wanted to see the world cheering for joy. There are so few occasions the entire world is gripped by good news. When was the last one? When Diana and Charles married?  Usually when all countries and continents are glued to the TV, we are watching a disaster unfold, a shooting spree at a school, an assassination of a leader, a terrorist attack. Think about it: Today we all gathered around the globe for love.

It was like watching a Disney movie, the carriage, the gown, the cheers, the flags waving so fast they looked like confetti in the crowd.

I loved the hats. Hats! Hats that looked like lampshades and giant plates and centerpieces on a table. Some had so many feathers, I wondered how many birds were harmed in the making of them. 

I loved the wild cheers over a simple kiss on the balcony.

This weekend I'm going on a retreat. I'm taking with me the quote by Saint Catherine of Siena that was mentioned in the wedding sermon:

Be who God meant you to be and you will set the world on fire. 

Weddings often overshadow a marriage. The endless details about the cake, the band, the hall, the food, the flowers, the gown. I can't imagine what it will be like for Prince William and his bride Kate to settle into a marriage after the giant wedding and reception are over.

In some ways, they're no different than any other couple. They will have to learn how to be someone's life partner and know when to put their spouse's needs and wants ahead of their own. 

Here's what I've learned in 15 years of marriage: Consider them 15 Life Lessons for Happily Ever After:

1. You can agree to disagree. No one has to win or lose an argument. You can have different opinions and views and come to honor and even celebrate your differences.

2. When you find you are both stuck, pause and reboot. Leave the loop you're stuck in. Go for a walk. Wash your face. Listen to some music. Take a breather. Do something to reboot yourself and the relationship.

3. Take the aerial view. How important is this in the scheme of the entire marriage? Can you extend your view of the person to see all the good they did last week, last month, last year?

4. Remind each other, "We're in this for the long haul." That got us through a year of cancer treatments. A marriage might have some rough moments or months. Keep telling yourself and each other, "We're in this for the long haul." Recommit to those wedding vows.

5. If a relationship has to be secret, you shouldn't be in it. If you can't tell your spouse about the lunch you're having with an old lover, cancel the lunch date.

6. Withholding the truth will hurt you both. Honesty isn't just about telling the truth, it's also about not withholding it. Don't withhold information that is important for your spouse to know.

7. If you don't ask, you don't get. Speak up for what you want. Don't expect your partner to read your mind on Valentine's Day, your birthday or even on Tuesday. You won't get everything you ask for, but if you don't ask, you've already given yourself a "no."

8. Use your words, and use them kindly. Edit yourself. If you think an unkind thought, it doesn't have to tumble out of your mouth. You aren't a gumball machine.

9. Enhance each others lives. Every morning, ask yourself: What can I do to enhance my partner's life? My husband brings in the newspaper every day to me. Small, but sweet. I pick him up sushi or a coconut bar for a treat.

10. Listen without your toolbox. Sometimes people want your presence, that's it. They don't want you to fix the problem, they want you to listen and understand. That's all. Sometimes that's everything.

11. Lead with love. Is what you're about to say kind, loving or helpful? If not, maybe it doesn't need to be said.

12.  Ask yourself: How important is this? Will it matter in five minutes? Five months? Five years? Most of us trip over the small stuff. Release and relax.

13. When you're wrong, promptly admit it. Take the high road. Admit to your part. Clean up your side of the street as soon as you see that it needs sweeping.

14. Any time your feelings don't match what just happened, your childhood button just got hit. In any marriage there are six people, you and your spouse, your spouse's parents and your  parents. We bring U-Hauls with us into the marriage. Deal with your past or it'll deal with you. Unpack the U-Haul once and for all. Get counseling if you need it. Release the past, the unresolved issues with mom and dad.

15. You are CEO of your own joy. Don't put the burden of your joy on anyone else. Light your own inner sparkler. No one can snuff it out but you. Feed your own soul and you'll never go hungry.

The paperback has those magic words stamped on the cover: The New York Times Bestseller. Wow, that's my book?! A big thanks to all of you who bought the book and have passed it along to countless friends and family. Thanks for sharing it and spreading the life lessons around the globe.

My publisher updated the paperback to include a blurb from Publishers Weekly, Redbook and various bloggers. It's cool to see their words of praise.

The best part? The paperback is more affordable for people at $13.99. Last night I was at the Mentor Public Library giving a talk and people were buying extra copies for graduation gifts.

I hope it helps all those new grads find their path and to know that the detours could just be the best part of the journey.

Tears fell as soon as I heard my own words, saw my own bald head, saw my daughter's wedding dress, saw my little grandson. I cry just thinking about all the life I've squeezed out of life in the 13 years since hearing the dreaded C word. 

Cancer scares the life out of you. Then it scares the life into you. A new life. A new appreciation for your spouse, your children, your siblings, your parents, your entire world. You never take growing old for granted. Or the next snowfall or shower or chance to hug your grandson.

God bless Lee and Jane Seidman for donating $42 million to build a new cancer hospital. Every cancer survivor will tell you, it's a place we hope we never have to use, but we're eternally grateful to have it right here in Cleveland.

Father Howard Gray, a Jesuit, celebrated the Mass. He said if he had one last sermon to give, the most imporant message would be to tell people about the love of God.

We make God harder than God is, he said. We make God unloveable.

We are loved. We are beloved.

"God has so fallen in love with us," he said. 

It made me wonder how we'd live if we truly believed that we are loved with every fiber of our being in every fiber of our being. Then Fr. Gray said something profound, "I stake my life on the love of God."

Can you? Can I?

His message from the pulpit was to love. My message from my pulpit was to hope. What Easter tells us is to place our hope in love.

Those words by Esther Hicks are changing my life. My friend, Meg, gave me a CD called "The Power of Emotions." I'm wearing it out listening to it.

Hicks says that life is the river that we're all in. The river never stops and it's never going to stop. You can grab your paddle and try to row upstream, but you won't get far for all that struggling. Best thing to do is relax and go downstream.

"Nothing you want is upstream," she said. Those words made me laugh out loud. So many times I set out to combat something, to win, to force, to resist. I expend lots of mental, emotional and physical energy fighting the current of life.

I know better. I've been whitewater rafting a number of times and every time, I've fallen in the river. The guides always tell you, if you fall in DON'T RESIST THE RIVER. The river will always win. It is always stronger. Just tuck your head in, point your toes downstream and enjoy the ride. 

Practice it. Every time you get a negative thought, a yucky emotion, a tight fist feeling in your forehead, a sick feeling in your gut, instead of grabbing an oar and battling the boss, the colleague, the spouse, the diagnosis, the guy in the SUV in front of you, let go. The flow will carry you along.

Life is a trip. Enjoy the ride. 

"Retard," he yelled at Coty.

If Coty could have jumped out of his wheelchair, Gino would have been hurting that day. Coty has cerebral palsy and absolutely hates the word retard.

He and Gino are now great friends. What happened? A teacher transformed their relationship. She wrote a play about that awful moment. The two teens star in it this weekend. 

You can read more about it in today's Plain Dealer.

We need more teachers like Lauren Persons, teachers who are willing to creatively handle problems, who take the time to turn an ugly moment into a teachable moment in a way that invites, not forces, students to become their best selves.

I met her in Cincinnati this past weekend at a retreat I gave at the United Methodist Church Armstrong Chapel. Pat lost her husband in 2009. They were married 59 years. Instead of lamenting the loss, she celebrates the life they shared and the friends who saw her through the loss.

"I could feel God's arms around me giving me a hug," she said.

She put her house up for sale and the first person who looked at it offered her more than she wanted. She held a garage sale. She sold an old toy from the attic. The person who bought it returned days later and gave her an envelope of cash. He sold the toy on eBay for so much money that he wanted to give the money to her. She declined it, but he insisted.

Then -- and this is the best part -- for her 80th birthday, Pat did something on the wild side. She went to a tattoo parlor. She got a tattoo. She now has a turtle on her back near her shoulder.

Next stop? She wants to volunteer at an orphanage in Africa. What if you get sick there, her friends asked. She figures it doesn't matter where she dies.

"The Lord is with me all the time," she told them. All the way to the finish line, which is nowhere in sight.

Or try out the Wonder Dog, a half-pound hot dog that comes with up to 40 toppings including peanut butter and jelly.

The most extreme food of all is the Nice 2 Meat You Burger that weighs 1 1/4 pound and comes with a half-pound hot dog and a quarter-pound of bacon.

I hope they have defibrillators in the dugout.

It makes me cringe to think of kids watching mom or dad or the guy next to them eating this. We wonder why more and more kids are obese. Wednesday at 7 p.m. EST on "The Regina Brett Show" on WKSU 89.7 FM, we're talking about how to create healthy children. You can listen by podcast or join the show by calling in at 888-957-8897.

I'm all for "take me out to the ballpark" and peanuts and Cracker Jack, but with a menu like the above, the family might have take a detour to the cardiac care unit.

The mundane, the necessary and the sad, according to Bob Bateman, a lieutenant colonel in the Army who is deployed to Afghanistan.

He wrote about packing day in The Plain Dealer on Sunday:

"Your helmet and body armor are in there, ammo pouches and tourniquet and blood clotting bandages, a camelback and the things you need to keep your weapon clean. You toss in some uniforms, lots of underwear and a huge number of socks.

"Then the professional things you need for your job -- things that are not on the private's packing list, but that you need to do your job just as clearly as he needs some specific things to be a rifleman or a machine gunner. You pack those, too.

"And then there is that last little space. You pack yourself in there."

It's a moving essay that reminded me of Tim O'Brien's packing list in the book, "The Things We Carried."

O'Brien wrote about what they carried when they left and once they were at war:

"They shared the weight of memory. They took up what others could no longer bear, Often, they carried each other, the wounded or weak. They carried infections. They carried chess sets, basketballs, Vietnamese English dictionaries, insignia of rank, Bronze Stars and Purple Hearts, plastic cards imprinted with the Code of Conduct. They carried diseases, among them malaria and dysentery. They carried lice and ringworm and leeches and paddy algae and various rots and molds. They carried the land itself. Vietnam, the place, the sod -a powdery orange-red dust that covered their boots and fatigues and faces. They carried the sky. The whole atmosphere, they carried it, the humidity, the monsoons, the stink of fungus and decay, all of it, they carried gravity.

"For the most part they carried themselves with poise, a kind of dignity. Now and then, however, there were times of panic, when they squealed or wanted to squeal but couldn't. When they twitched and made moaning sounds and covered their heads and said Dear Jesus and flopped around on the earth and fired their weapons blindly and cringed and sobbed and begged for the noise to stop and went wild and made stupid promises to themselves and to God and to their mothers and fathers, hoping not to die.

"They carried all the emotional baggage of men who might die. Grief, terror, love, longing -these were intangibles, but the intangibles had their own mass and specific gravity, they had tangible weight. They carried shameful memories. They carried the common secret of cowardice barely restrained, the instinct to run or freeze or hide, and in many respects this was the heaviest burden of all, for it could never be put down, it required perfect balance and perfect posture. They carried their reputations. They carried the soldier's greatest fear, which was the fear of blushing. Men killed, and died, because they were embarrassed not to"

 To all those at war and their loved ones left behind, we carry you in our hearts. Be safe and Godspeed.

What strong women inspire you?

I just saw a movie called, "With Love, From the Age of Reason" at the Cleveland International Film Festival. It comes from France and Belgium. It's the fictional story of Margaret, a Type A+ businesswoman who sells global-warming power to the Chinese but is losing her inner power.

She keeps a drawer full of photos of powerful women to give her courage. It works. When a woman in the office challenges her and snaps, "Do you want my job?" Margaret answers, "No. I'm aiming much higher."

You gotta love that kind of spunk.

Margaret ends up getting a pile of letters from herself. When she was 7 she wrote herself letters and had them mailed to herself on her 40th birthday. The letters take her back to her childhood, take her deep within to the child still alive in her and helps her discover who she really wants to be.

The message of the movie?

Become who you are.

The good thing is, their home never looked cleaner. With open houses every few days, the table shines, the floor sparkles, the place looks like they evicted the toddler. Until he gets home after each open house and dumps his trains and trucks on the couch.

Another good thing, they come over here during the open houses so I get more grandbaby time.

So how do you sell a house in this market? I learned these tips from my guests on "The Regina Brett Show" on WKSU 89.7 last night:

See your house through the eyes of the buyers. Add some curb appeal, plants, a coat of paint on the porch, fix the mail box that's hanging, hang a wreath on the door.

Smell your house through their noses. If you have a cat or dog, light some candles, spray some Fabreeze on the furniture.

Add lighting, declutter, paint the walls neutral but interesting colors.

Connect with the buyer's emotions. They are looking for a home, not a house. Set the table, dress up the bedrooms with fluffy pillows, make the bathroom look like a spa.

You might like it so much you decide to stay.

A 9.0 earthquake.

A tsunami.

A nuclear nightmare that hasn't ended.

Reader Izumi Sugiyama from Japan sent me this email soon after the quake hit:

"Dear Regina I am sending this mail from Japan. You know we are in catastlophy. I am living Yokohama where is near Tokyo. Everyday many earthquake and TV and news give us scary. People is chacing foods, water and baterry over their capacity.

My friends and I am keeping touch strongly. I bought your book Japnese version last week before the earthquake. I am very scary to sleep, I think if big earthquake comes when I am sleeping.

We Japanese know how scary big earthqacke. I am reading your book when I go to bed. It give me the feeling of peaceful. Thanks of your book, I can sleep. Thank you. If possible, please pray for Japan. Many people died, and many people will be died. Our life totally changed. Your book give me the hope present time."

The people of Japan need our prayers and our support. There are many ways to send help. Here are a few:

American Red Cross

 Doctors Without Borders

 Save the Children

 Americares

 When people ask, Where is God in the midst of such a tragedy? The answer is, in each of us. Do whatever you can to offer hope.

"My brother lost his battle to cancer when he was just 24. Watching him, being near him, and seeing him was the most horrible experience I have ever had. Yet, I tried to take every second I had with him and cherish it.

He would talk to us, share his stories, and I learned that he lived more by the time he was 24 than I did -- even now, at 32. He passed away and he has inspired me to live life. Little did I know how hard that was going to be for me.

I ended up in grief therapy because I couldn't even pick my self up in the morning and I had no strength or courage like I told him I would have. I just finished reading your book today. I laughed, I cried and I had a lot of 'ah-ha!' moments. I swear you wrote this book for me!

Since my brother passed away, I tried reading many self help books on overcoming grief. What I learned from your book is -- reading about it will get me nowhere -- and fast! I have to do, see, and live. My brother inspired me to go back to school and get my degree. I have always wanted that for me and never had the courage - because I am like you, I would sit on the sidelines and watch life go past instead of getting 'messy' in life.

I will graduate with my BS in Social Psychology this May and begin Grad school in the fall. I would like to become a bereavement counselor and help those who are suffering and give back to others what others have been so wonderful at offering myself and my brother.

I saw so much of me in your book.  Out of the MANY things I will take from this book, life lesson # 42, on page 193 was my most inspirational moment. 'When you finally let go of the person you used to be, you get to discover the person you are now and the person you want to become'

For a very long time, I clung to my past because it was what I knew. The future holds such uncertainty, and I have no control in that. My therapist told me that it is amazing how much more control we have, when we learn to let go of the control we thought we had.

Your book gave me hope, and some lessons to really live by. I wish you all the best in living in the 'messy' world that is out there for you! I'm sure there is a whole lot of mess for me to get myself into! Now off to work to begin living to person 'I' was meant to be."

Asher walked around saying, "Ather birthday. Ather is 2!" then held up five fingers. Guess counting comes a little later in life.

His mom made him a John Deere tractor cake. The icing on the tires (cupcakes) was so black we were all afraid to eat it. She made it so authentic, she crumbled brown crumbs on the tires to look like dirt. Asher wanted to play with the cake and wouldn't take a bite.

He's at the age where he loves everything equally. He treasures every book and orders, "Read." Every truck, and orders, "Play." Not a bad way to spend your days reading and playing.

In the two years he's made me a grandma, it's been a real joy. He's taught me to be present in this moment, nowhere else. Hope we get to stay in that moment together for a long time.

How is it I still feel 25 on the inside?

I used to call my daughter every birthday morning at 6:21 a.m. to replay the moment of her birth. This year I let her sleep in. But I thought about that moment she was born, when I first met her and saw those big blue eyes scanning my face, asking, "Are you my mother?"

When you give birth to a child you give birth to yourself. You are  a new creation, a mother. It's the greatest job in the world, until your baby has her own baby and you become a grandmother.

Pure joy. That's the only word that fits. For my daughter's birthday, my grandson had a sleepover here. He's pure boy. He's already pulled the heads off his mom's old Barbie dolls. We spent hours on the floor digging pretend dirt -- Rice Krispies -- into dump trucks and reading about Pooh and Piglet looking for Woozles.

You may have to get older, but you never have to grow up.

I love everything about it. The gowns. The speeches. The celeb sitings. The movie clips. The winners. The moments.

Movies matter. Think about all the ones that shaped you. In my Plain Dealer column, I wrote about movies that remind you what's important in life. Here are 25 movies that did it for me:

1. "The Great Escape." It's amazing what can be done in the worst circumstances when you work together.

2. "Field of Dreams." A catch with Dad matters no matter how old you get.

3. "The Shawshank Redemption." Hope is the one thing no one can take from you.

4. "The Mission." Forgiving others has the power to set you free.

5. "The Wizard of Oz." There's no place like home, and it's right here. Click your heels and claim it.

6. "Big." You have to grow old, but you don't have to grow up.

7. "Apollo 13." When things are at their worst, it could actually be your finest hour. With a roll of duct tape and some imagination, you can fix anything.

8. "Singin' in the Rain." As long as there is a song in your heart, it's never a cloudy day.

9. "To Kill a Mockingbird." Even in a world that is unfair and unjust, nobility still matters.

10. "Glory." True power comes from the inside and can never be taken from you.

11. "All About Eve." Love trumps fame.

12. "What's Eating Gilbert Grape?" Your family is important; so is knowing when to hold on to them and when to let go.

13. "The Elephant Man." We're all beautiful on the inside.

14. "To Sir, With Love." A teacher can shape you for the rest of your life.

15. "When Harry Met Sally." If you leave your wedding without your best friend, you married the wrong person.

16. "Dead Man Walking." Be the face of love for another.

17. "Citizen Kane." Your childhood shapes you forever.

18. "Chariots of Fire." It doesn't matter if you fall, it matters how fast you rise from the fall.

19. "Defending Your Life." Fear could be the greatest sin of all, the stumbling block that keeps you from experiencing heaven on earth.

20. "Schindler's List." One person can make all the difference in the world.

21. "Dead Poet's Society." Seize the day. Live deeply and fully this moment.

22. "Saving Private Ryan." The ultimate act of love is to lay down your life for someone you don't even know.

23. "Parenthood." Life is messy and one bumpy ride. Hop on the roller coaster anyway. The merry-go-round is for sissies.

24. "City Slickers." Only one thing matters. Find out what it is, and you'll never lose your smile.

25. "Lilies of the Field." Holiness abides in us all. Amen.

What would you put in your top 25?

How can you get more out of your job without feeling drained at the end of every day?

Tonight on "The Regina Brett Show" we're talking to the co-founders of Heart to Heart Communications. Larry Vuillemin turned his life around after having a stroke at age 35. Father Norm Douglas talks about how to stay true to your purpose and mission at work. Together they're training leaders and co-workers to have a purpose-driven life.

Corry Devin from The Energy Project in NYC talks about the "Take Back Your Lunch" program and tips on how to get re-energized every day before, during and after work.

Call in during the show at 888-957-8897 or email regina@wksu.org and join our conversation.

What are you doing to feel fulfilled at work?

The average grade of black students is a C +. The average grade of white students is a B+.

What do we do to close the race gap?

Ron Ferguson, a former Clevelander, has become the guru on the gap. His tips?

Hire leaders who pair passion and competence, a sense of urgency and possibility.

Empower teachers, don't just criticize them.

Stop preaching at parents and give them tools to do a better job.

Talk to your children about ideas. Help them become thinkers. Celebrate knowledge.

Read, read, read. Read in front of your kids. Read to your kids. Read around your kids.

Turn off the TV.

Churches, employers, the media, retail outlets, sports teames, everyone needs to send the message that education matters.

Decide to be optimistic.

My favorite quote that Ron shared: "People who say it cannot be done should stay out of the way of people who are doing it."

She's all too familiar with mental illness. She knows what it's like to be called the monster's mother. Her son, who has schizophrenia, killed a Cleveland Heights police officer.

Tonight on "The Regina Brett Show" on WKSU 89.7 FM, Jeanette shares her journey. We also have Terry Russell, the head of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, psychiatrist Todd Ivan and Dr. John Clarke and his son Daniel, who has schizophrenia.

Are we doing enough to help those with mental illness? What more should we do?

Call in live during the show from 7 pm to 8 pm EST at 888-957-8897 or email regina@wksu.org

One nun in grade school gave me an F and wrote on my paper, "Chicken Scratch."  It's only gotten worse over time as I write faster to keep up in interviews.

People told me I was destined to be a doctor, since no one can read a doctor's penmanship.

Who needs handwriting these days? We communicate in texts and emails. It could become obsolete. Not for me. There's nothing like handwriting in a journal, feeling your fingers around a pen flying across a blank page. My dad's hands were stained from tar and paint from his roofing work, mine are stained by ink.

Tonight on "The Regina Brett Show" at 7 p.m. we're talking about handwriting. Guests include Virgina Berninger, Michael Sull and Margaret Shepherd.  Join us during the show at 888-957-8897 or email regina@wksu.org

You'll also get tips on how to write a love letter to your valentine, which sure beats sending a text. 

A reader just sent this email:

"The little girl in me, the eleven year old one, needs healing, love and attention. Lots of all of those. My dad left home when I was 11; it took him 35 years to apologize for the selfish choice he made, for how we suffered emotionally as a result, but hearing his words just this week helped heal the wound a bit.

"And reading what you said about 'caring for that child' made me realize it's ok to indulge these feelings and to take care of me. Thank you for not ever giving up, for taking the time to share, for learning to be true to you."

How sad it took 35 years to apologize, but what a gift to finally hear those words. It's never too late to heal the people you hurt.

Unlike most of America, we taped the game and fast-forwarded through the game to watch all the commercials. Not many great ones this year, but a few memorable ones.

My favorite? The commercial for Chrysler 200 "imported from Detroit."

A lovely view of a city that gets dissed like Cleveland does too often. The commercial made sure we knew, This is not New York City, the Windy City, Sin City and it's no one's Emerald City.

But boy, did that commercial make Detroit shine like the rare gem it is. Detroit is a lot like Cleveland, so much beauty amid the grit that most people can't look past. Both towns have been through hell and back again, both have stunning cultural events, architectural wonders and people who offer their breathtaking talents to breathe new life into the city every day.

Kudos to Chrysler for honoring the people and the place, not just the car.

That's where the women's shelter was located, on Payne Avenue in Cleveland. She was a piano prodigy who might have ended up at Carnegie Hall but schizophrenia derailed her life.

She lost her marriage, her home, her daughters. But she ended up blessing all the women at the shelter, just by her presence, by surviving so many years on the street.

Her daughter, Mira Bartok, wrote a lovely book "The Memory Palace" about their journey that zigged and zagged, as most life journeys do. 

You can read about Norma in today's Plain Dealer. I love the words spoken at her memorial:

"If you want to get attention, whisper. Miss Norma had a life of whispering. She taught me to dismiss the noise. Pay attention to what really matters."

What matters might not be in the noise, but in the quiet surrounding it.

I had a friend who took her life. Jodi was a beautiful woman I looked up to and admired. She fought an addiction and it finally won. My cousin's daughter, Keely, took her life at 16. She struggled with bipolar disorder. I didn't know that until the funeral.

A reader just sent me this email: 

"Dear Regina, I thank you for the book God Never Blinks. Since my son committed suicide in 2007 my soul has been lost and lonely. Somehow your book touched me and helped me feel hope. Even though I know as a parent I did everything I could for my son, I still feel shame and sadness that I could not "save" him. Thank you for putting my prayers on paper."

There's so much we don't understand about the brain and the heart. The sadness of losing someone will remain, but the shame doesn't have to. Most people who take their lives suffer from a mental illness the world can't see. 

When Keely killed herself, at first I felt angry. I said it would have been easier if she had died from a disease. My sister gently reminded me, "She did."

Curly in the movie  "City Slickers" said it's one thing, but never revealed it. You have to find it on your own.

An old Jesuit priest told me it's to love. At the end of the day, you ask yourself: Did you love?

I think it's a bunch of things. Having no regrets. Making peace with dandelions.Showing up early. Showing up with flowers. Reading the funny pages. Forgetting what you were mad about. A squeaky porch swing.

The secret of life is driving with the top down. Loving the reflection in the mirror. Knowing when to let go. Holding a baby. Laughing when you're happy. Crying when you're sad. Returning what you borrowed. Honoring your wedding vows. Getting your sillies out. Rolling down hills...

The secret of life? It's all around us. Right here, right now.

My head is swimming from all the fingerpointing, pundits opining and blame going around.

I don't know who is at fault. It's hard to blame anyone but the shooter when you see his picture on the front page of the New York Times. He looks like a young man who has a serious mental illness.

Right now, instead of blaming anyone or anything, I hope we can pause, take a breath and be more mindful of the people around us. The bruised and wounded who stand out in classrooms, who speak out in ways that cry out for help on Facebook, who are broken in some way that will break others if left untreated.

Perhaps those of us who are blessed with better mental health can be more mindful of what we put in the greater world around us. What can it hurt to see this as a call for compassion?

Clutter is anything that isn't useful, beautiful or life enhancing. The Pez collection your kids neglect to keep in their rooms. The carburetor parts on the dining room table. The sewing project that has taken over three spare rooms.

The FLY Lady, Marla Cilley, was on my show this week and gave great tips for de-cluttering your house, which is to say, your life. We also had Barb Tako, author of Clutter Clearing Choices on "The Regina Brett Show" to talk about how to declutter from season to season.

Here are some of their tips:

To declutter a desk, remove everything into boxes, then start at the center of the desk. Work on it six inches at a time.

Place paperwork in labeled baskets if you need to see it to remember it's there.

Get a shredder. Donate the shreds to the Humane Society for pet bedding.

In the dining room, once the table is clear, set it for dinner. Keep it set every time and it won't collect clutter.

Always shine the kitchen sink before bed so you wake up to one glorious clean area.

Clutter attracts clutter. Try the "27 Fling Boogie." Marla advises this: walk around with a garbage bag and, as fast as you can, toss in 27 items. You can't stop to look in. Just keep moving. Then take an empty box and walk through the house filling it with things to donate. When you are done, take it to the car. DO NOT ATTEMPT TO RESCUE THESE ITEMS.

Then put your house on a diet. If you bring in five items, you release five items. Both you and everyone in the house will feel lighter.

My aunt Kate continues to amaze me. She's in her 90s and is always reading the latest New York Times best seller. She knows what all of her 50 nieces and nephews are doing, what cities they're in, what jobs they hold, etc.

She keeps her mind going, even though her body has slowed down.

Today I wrote a column about others who can show us how to age. People like book store owner Jane Kessler, who turns 90 this year, and mystery writer Les Roberts, who is still cranking out books in his 70s.

Their tips?

Don't sit back in the rocking chair. Sit on boards of businesses and non-profits. Stay involved and engaged in the world. Work part time. Run for office. Volunteer.

Add new people in your life as you lose old friends. Discover dating. You're never too old to fall in love.

Keep learning. Read books. Take a class. Go to art shows, concerts, lectures.

Get involved with young people. Learn the latest technology. Become curious about what you don't know. Keep moving, even if it's slower. Walk. Take yoga classes. Try Pilates.

Accept your limits. Adapt and find a new purpose.

Good advice for all ages.

My grandson has become my greatest teacher. He's only 19 months old, but constantly shows me how to live with more awe and joy.

In today's Plain Dealer I wrote about some of the things he has taught me: Say no like you mean it. Savor the small stuff. Pause in the presence of beauty. Use your words.

Get your sillies out. Before bed, his parents tell him, "Get your sillies out" and he convulses with laughter. He sticks his tongue out, shakes his head, throws his hands in the air and runs around in circles. He releases all the joy in him and makes room for more.

What a great way to end every day.

I got mine off to a great start by releasing everything I didn't want to carry into the new year. I wanted to leave behind the old year and any resentments or grudges.

The last day of the year, I took some quiet time and reflected on the people in my life. There were a few relationships that seemed a bit broken, some that needed repaired and some that needed to be released for good, for both of us to grow in new ways.

I jotted down the names of ten or so people on ten separate index cards. On each card, I wrote: I release ____ and tell a new story. Then I wrote on a new card, their name and the new story. Instead of so and so done me wrong, so and so taught me a valuable life lesson.

Then I took the cards of release and burned them, and said goodbye to the old story of having been wounded.

Too often we have one bad story we velcro onto a person and we won't let go of it. I decided to release each individual and the old story I told of how they hurt me. No more victims, no more villains. The new year has a clean slate for new stories -- with happy endings for all of us.

The media will bombard us with timelines of the great events from the past year as we say goodbye. For me, the year is more about the small, precious moments that land on the heart, not the big events that end up on the timeline.

What was your best moment of 2010? All mine included a little guy named Asher. He's my baby Buddha. My grandson is the happiest person I know. 

When I get to tuck him in, we snuggle and he'll look up at me and say, "Sing." So I sing. Which touches me deeply since he calls me "Gita" which means "song."

Then I gently put him in the crib and whisper to him, "Gita loves Asher, Poppa loves Asher, Mommy loves Asher, Daddy loves Asher, everybody loves Asher." Then he'll look up with sleepy eyes and smile and say, "Yay!" It melts my heart every time.

I like to spend a few hours in quiet reflection on the year past, the gains, the losses, the loose ends that need tied up, the burdens that need to be released, the joys that call to be savored, that point the way, like a compass needle, to the future.

Then I reflect on the clean slate before me. What do I want to write on it? I try to see myself a year from now, at the end of 2011, and ask: What would I like to have accomplished? What kind of meaning did I add to the world around me? What difference did I make in the lives of others?

If you picked a word for the new year, what would it be?

What do you want to do with your brand new magical year?

I'm giving myself a snow day, with permission not to drive anywhere I don't have to go.

It's almost a blizzard outside, 18 degrees but minus 1 with the windchill. You can't see the roads and if you can, wait three minutes and you can't. Lake Effect snow is supposed to give us a foot of the white stuff by Wednesday.

It's beautiful to watch if you're snug indoors. My grandson calls it, "No, no." He's afraid to walk in it this year. Probably because it comes up to his little knees. Hope to get him out sledding once the temperature is a respectable 25 or more.

His mom says he won't wear his new snow boots. He insists on wearing the green frog rain boots because they have a face. I've looked everywhere for snow boots that look fun, but can't find any. Guess the snow is supposed to be fun enough for a kid.

Charlie Brown is fond of saying that in the Peanuts comic strip whenever he's frustrated. But is there really such a thing as good grief?

Wednesday on "The Regina Brett Show" we're going to talk about grief and a new board game called "Doggone Grief." It's supposed to help children and adults talk about what makes them feel sad, mad, happy or scared after they've lost someone.

Brenda Brown, director of Grief Services at Aultman Hospital, designed the game. She'll be on the show along with Dylan Phillips. He's in middle school and lost his dad last year. School counselor Matt Gagnon and Nancy Carst, the bereavement coordinator at Akron Children's Hospital, will also join us.

Call in with your questions toll free at 888-WKSU-897 or email during the show from 7 to 8 pm EST at regina@wksu.org

Holidays can be tough when you've lost someone you love. We hope the show will ease some of the pain.

It made me think of the things I loved about my dad who has been gone 11 years. Maybe it'll remind you about what you love about your dad.

Here's Pat's list:

REASONS WHY WE LOVE DAD: 

1. Dad is a great slow story teller.

2. Dad has a good sense of money management and gives good advice.

3. Our favorite nick name for you is Old Yeller and Smiley.

4. Now when he yells at us we can ignore him and go home.

5. Dad helped us realize that saving our money brings big dreams.

6. Dad truly cares for all of us.

7. Dad was a dedicated little league football coach for us on the Sharonville Jets.

8. Dad would travel to many states to watch us play football and basketball.

9. Dad always remembers special occasions with a Hallmark card and gift.

10. Dad never complained about driving me to my bus stop every day in high school.

11. Dad always honks his horn when he sees a lady bending over in her yard.

12. Dad would jump out and scare us when we watched the Cool Ghoul as kids.

13. Dad can make great malts, eggnog and whiskey sours.

14. Dad had the patience to teach me how to drive a stick shift.

15. Dad rode with me in a horse and buggy on my wedding day. I loved it.

16. Dad always endured my ballet recitals.

17. Dad saved money and sold stock so we could all go to college if we wanted.

18. Dad always welcomed our friends and family into our home.

19. Dad would unlock the door late at night and never ask us why we had the paper.

20. Dad was a great Santa Claus for years and years -- costume and all.

21. Dad thanks for wiping our noses all those years.

22. Dad prays for us when we need prayers and even when we don’t need them.

23. Dad accepted us even when we behaved at our worst.

24. Dad married Mom for 57 years through good times and bad.

25. Dad introduced us to Camelot, Tony Bennett and Robert Goulet.

26. Dad cooked us Pink mashed potatoes when Mom was gone for dinner.

27. Dad loved to call my husband by the wrong name “Clem Kadilittlehopper and Meathead.” The kids were meatballs.

28. Dad got us hooked on season tickets to the Bengal’s games.

29. Dad still attends those Bengal’s games and tail gates like a trooper.

30. Dad has a very loud voice range especially when he is angry. It is loud and clear, and sometimes funny.

31. Dad enlightened our life with the many vacation trips to Massachusetts for many years.

32. Dad always made family time a high priority.

33. Dad encouraged family values and togetherness always.

34. Dad made “pull my finger” famous in our family.

35. Dad was able to survive a flaxseed poisoning attempt by Mom and not complain about it.

36. When Dad could get away with it, he would wear his slippers to church.

37. Dad came up with the phrase “Energy Shower”. It was sharing a shower with the one you love to conserve water.

38. Dad generously bought many breakfasts on Sunday mornings at Bob Evans.

39. Dad always blesses the family Christmas tree every Christmas Eve.

40. I love when Grampy holds my hand. His hands are warm and soft.

41. Grampy always has, without fail, some sort of candy that he will sneak to you.

42. Grampy’s multiple trips to the post office each week are so cute.

43. Dad’s bark is bigger than his bite.

44. Dad has a wonderful spirit of love and generosity.

45. Dad is gentle yet strong.

46. Dad has a great passion for faith, family and friends.

47. He has always been there for us.

48. The way Grampy rubs his face and takes off his glasses when he is getting ready to tell a story.

49. I love the way Grampy sleeps in his chair with his mouth open.

50. Every time I see Grampy he has another dirty story.

51. The biggest reason why I love Grampy is because he will always be the best Grampy anyone could ask for.

52. Dad is not afraid to wear his MacArthur plaid anytime he wants.

53. When Dad picks up the restaurant tab he always acts like he is having a heart attack. 54. Dad snores like a big old bear, but we love him anyway.

55. We have fond memories of Dad wearing his Knights of Columbus suit and parading around our living room.

56. Dad always drove the beater cars, so my Mom could drive the reliable family car.

57. We love to hear about Dad’s travels which were all around the world.

58. Dad insisted on us all having chores or “yard guard” duty. This helped build our work ethics that we still use today.

59. When my son was having heart surgery, Dad was on a work trip to Germany. He called everyday for an update on his progress.

60. He loved to tell the male Grandchildren to always “Keep the mouse in the house.”

61. Dad volunteered his time to many Credit Union organizations all his life.

62. Dad has good old common sense, which is rare today.

63. Dad believes in showing up for events early not just on time. Not all his children have picked up on this trait.

64. Dad believes in his Catholic faith and attends mass every day.

65. Whenever we tried to make excuses for our actions, Dad would say, “Men Nada, Menyada” which is Spanish for Tomorrow.

66. Dad is good at math and did our taxes for a while.

67. We would not be here if he did not marry Mom.

68. Dad has many long time friends that he cherishes

69. Dad is not too dorky and fun to hang out with.

70. He is funny and sarcastic all at the same time.

71 He takes long pauses when he tells stories and does not want to be interrupted.

72 He has a favorite torn up wool sweater he wears every day. Mom tries to get rid of it, but he finds it and wears it anyway.

73. Dad is a good listener and problem solver. He organizes thoughts and puts them to paper.

74. Dad gives the best big bear hugs.

75. He coined the phrases squid, split tail and Time out.

76. He offered free opthomology appointments to an array of referees and umpires.

77. He was always looking for a flashlight when he did home projects.

78. He was always considerate to the family dog, George, by letting him run the neighborhood.

79. Dad had an eloquent way of giving the boys a birds and bees talk.

80. Dad today is your day. We all love you and Mom very much. Enjoy!

With Love, From your children, grandchildren and Sue and Dave. "

I love my family but find I need to take extra care of me when we all gather. It's easy to drift off into the people I used to be and respond to others like a 6 year old whining or a 16 year old rebelling. 

How do you stay your best self over the holidays? Too often we neglect ourselves when the holidays hit. We stop exercising, taking daily time outdoors, eating healthy and getting calming doses of solitude.

The Plain Dealer offered some good tips today in a story by Diane Suchetka and Evelyn Theiss:

Step back and observe the chaos. Extract yourself and just watch and appreciate the humor and survival skills others use.

Have an escape plan ready. Volunteer to run out for ice, return library books, walk the dog.

Don't take anything personally.

Skip the gossip and the 100-year-old stories about who did what to whom way back when.

Lower your expectations. My goal? Aim for completion, not perfection.

Phone a friend. Have a 9-1-1 list of emergency friends who can restore you to sanity.

Take care of you. The care and feeding of you is 100 percent up to you, no one else.

My secret? Have a built in reward for you that no one else is in charge of and no one can take away. Bring a book of poetry you love and sneak off to reboot. Pack a favorite treat that you squirrel away by yourself to enjoy. I find that when I take care of me, I don't put that burden on anyone else and everyone ends up a lot happier.

A bit thanks to everyone who forward my 50 life lessons to aunts and uncles, nieces and nephews and friends all over the globe.

The book is being published in 18 countries -- Thailand, Taiwan, China, Canada, Japan, Korea, Poland, Portugal, Sweden, Brazil, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Russia, Latvia, the United Kingdom, the Czech Republic, the USA and Indonesia.

I got a copy of the British version. They weren't fond of God in the title so they renamed it, "Life's Little Detours: 50 Lessons to Find and Hold onto Happiness." And the cover is blue with road signs nailed on a pole pointing the way. Wonder what the book will look like in all those other countries.

He blames the internet, all that time online searching and surfing the web.

Carr joins me on "The Regina Brett Show" tonight at 7 on WKSU 89.7. Call in with your questions or comments at 888-WKSU-897 or email live during the show at regina@wksu.org

Margot Milcetich, a meditation and yoga instructor, also joins us to talk about the importance of doing one thing at a time, and shares how to feel connected in this digital age.

How are you keeping technology from tampering with your brain?

That song by Queen started playing in my head today when I heard about the closing of the local Joseph-Beth Booksellers at Legacy Village in Greater Cleveland. What an honor to have held a book signing there where so many great authors stopped.

The parent company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. 

Barnes & Noble is for sale and one of our local Border's shut down. Fortunately, our independent smaller stores are holding on. Appletree, Macs Backs and Visible Voice continue to draw in readers and shoppers.

It's sad to think of a world without bookstores. It always inspired me just to walk around Joseph-Beth. It's like all the authors on all those shelves spoke to you, like in movie The Dead Poets Society. Only instead of whispering, "Carpe Diem, seize the day," the authors shouted, "Seize your pen and write!"

To the winners, congrats.

To the losers, thanks for fighting the good fight.

To the voters, your job isn't over. If you voted these people in office, make sure they follow through on all those promises they made to us all.

If you didn't vote for them, make sure they follow through on all those promises they made to us all.

Win or lose, we all still live in the greatest democracy on earth. Do your part to preserve it and celebrate it.

And to those who didn't vote, you don't get to complain.

Today he wrote about his mother. He called her a Hall of Famer. She majored in unconditional love. She taught people to love, of all things, bowling.

You gotta appreciate a mom who knows the value of a strike, and gives out A's in bowling class so you don't lose the love of the game.

The Cavs beat the Celtics 95-87. The Celtics!  Yahoooooooooo!!!!!

Maybe we really can win the whole shebang without James. Wouldn't that be something to see the Cavs win it all? Ya gotta love the underdog, and we in Cleveland are barking louder than ever for our Cavs. 

The team is off to a great start. And LeBron?

The Miami Heat dream team LOST  to the Celtics on Tuesday in LeBron's big debut game.

Final score: Celtics 88 Miami 80

Go Cleveland!

Go Cavs!

He's just over a year and a half so this was his first wedding ever. When his parents wanted to get him to try on his tux, they tried to sound all excited. He thought they said, "Trucks" and got excited until he found out it was a boring article of clothing.

Turns out the tux they borrowed was too big, so I found a 2T black suit at J.C. Penneys. I had to hem the sleeves and pant legs, taking up about four inches. I found him a white dress shirt, black Buster Brown dress shoes and black and gold argyle socks. I bought two iron-on patches to sew inside the jacket, one of a fire truck and one of a dump truck, so he could flip the suit jacket open to see his trucks.

He couldn't wait to put it on when he saw the "trucks" on his "tux." He looked like a miniature GQ model. He had a ball at the reception. He had even more fun once he could ditch the "tux" for his dinosaur fleece pajamas and run around the dance floor until bedtime.

Best part of the deal? He now has a new uncle named Ted, who is like big Teddy Bear, and likes to play with trucks.

Tom Saal was a Marine lieutenant in Vietnam. He lasted four whole months before stepping on a land mine. Those four months have haunted him for 40 years. He went to Vietnam at age 21; he returned to visit this month at 65.

Joe Caley was an Army scout who worked with a dog sniffing out booby traps and possible ambushes. He was 21 and spent 365 days there until his chopper was shot out of the sky. He's 63 now and still gets jittery when he talks about that year in hell.

Tom read a poem on the show about his buddy Jack Ruggles who took his last step on Feb. 28, 1968.

"We had known each other for over a year.

Gone through OCS together, trained together,

Slept in the mud together, witnessed our first death together.

Talking on a trail together for five minutes.

"Well, we had best get back to our platoons before they wander off."

Laughter.

"I'll see you when I see you. Be safe. Be careful. Watch where you step."

More laughter, Lieutenants laugher.

That was it. No more. His last words to me.

Minutes later...Land mine...Explosion.

His last words: "Be careful. Watch where you step."

It's ironic that war has no feelings, takes no sides, doesn't care who dies.

My good friend, Jack Ruggles.

Gone in an instant."

In another poem called, "If I began" Tom wrote:

"If I began to hear, to taste, to smell, to feel

the death of the too, too young Marine lieutenant,

the tears would flow from me like the torrents

of the Spokane River which I sit watching with my daughter, Anna.

She, naively and unknowingly sitting by my side,

and telling me how happy and fulfilled she is

nursing cancer patients at a small community hospital

as an introduction to her new-found life.

And me, determined and refusing to share these intrusive thoughts

which leap in and out of my brain

as does lightning shatter the darkness of a summer storm."

My sibs rented a house on Garver Lake just north of South Bend to enjoy a weekend at Notre Dame.

What a wild time I had with 19 of us packed into one house.

My nieces and nephews wore me out. We played Twister, football, ping pong, tag, SPUD and hide and seek.They ran around wearing neon green glow stick necklaces in the dark until we got yelled at for making too much noise. Then we moved indoors and played hide and seek in the dark.

Man, I felt like a kid again and have the bruises to prove it. Who says you have to grow up?

My sibs rented a house on a lake a few miles outside of Southbend, so we're turning it into a family reunion. We're all so proud of Leah. She's made the band all four years she's been at St. Mary's. It's taken a lot of work and perserverance to play and march and practice, to work to earn money for school and to get good grades.

She's taught me a lot about going after what you love in life. She grew up in a small town and competed with kids from all over the country to get in that band. She's so humble about it. She never boasts about it, but damn, does she make us all proud.

Every day on the bus, the kids called him "Polar Bear" and refused to let him have a seat. They mocked him for being so smart and so quiet. They teased him for being overweight and wearing glasses.

One day, Andy had enough. He called his dad, told him he loved him, then walked out onto the interstate and stepped into the path of a truck. He planned it so well, he even left a note in his car apologizing to the truck driver.

Andy's dad, Nicholas, came on "The Regina Brett Show" tonight to share his story. It broke my heart. Kirk Zajac, who was one of the kids who bullied Andy on the bus, also came on the show. Kirk was devastated when he found out Andy took his life.

Kirk went to the Lehman's and confessed. Nicholas forgave him. Now they do talks together on suicide prevention and how to stop bullying. 

If you want to know more about bullying, tune into WKSU's series on Mean Kids with Vivian Goodman. It'll open your eyes, and maybe your kid's heart.

You can also read more about bullying in my column on Thursday.

The silence and solitude attracted me, that, and the writing of Thomas Merton. He is the one person whose words touch me every time.

My favorite work of his is an excerpt from "Thoughts In Solitude." They form the prayer that I keep posted in my daily planner:

"My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you...."

Someone placed two rosaries on the small white simple cross that marks his grave. It looks like all the other white crosses outside of the abbey. Inside the men pray non-stop for the world, chanting ancient psalms that somehow still soothe me, along with Merton's words:

"Therefore I will trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with  me, and will never leave me to face my perils alone."

I'm in awe of them. In one 12-hour shift they help a mother celebrate her newborn and another mother say goodbye to a stillborn. They make the pain go away. They make you believe you can get through anything. You can read my tribute to nurses in The Plain Dealer.

When I was going to start chemo 12 years ago I had my first and only fight with a nurse. She wanted to schedule my chemo appointments and I kept trying to postpone them. I had volleyball two nights a week, three columns a week to write, and all kinds of assorted plans.

"You need to get your priorities straight," she said.

I balked then I barked at her. I was angry, not at her, at cancer. 

Of course, I  realized, she was right. Life is Priority No. 1. Everything else comes after that.

Nurses know that better than anyone.

Everyone at The Plain Dealer has to take 12 days unpaid. The cut in pay is tough for everyone, but I'd rather see everyone take a small hit than see anyone take a big hit and get laid off.

Last week I had 5 days of furlough. It was the perfect time to take off. It was the last real week of summer with temperatures in the 80s and 90s. I sat on the backyard swing and just soaked up the sun. One day I went to yoga, another day I got a massage. I could get used to not working, but then how would I pay for yoga and massages? Hmm...

I stayed up til 2 a.m. watching the movie "The Professional" and "Rudy" about the kid who wanted to play for Notre Dame.

I wasn't a total slacker. I spoke at three book signings, did a radio interview and hosted my weekly radio show on 89.7 WKSU. This week we're talking about Alzheimer's Disease. You can call in the show toll free at 888-WKSU-897. 

Our question for this week's show is: What is the book that changed your life?

Tune in on Wednesday from 7 to 8 p.m. EST and you might get a few more book title to read for your furlough time off.

What famous person would you like to interview?

Who is the most famous person you've ever written about?

The question gets asked in a variety of ways when people find out you've been a journalist for 24 years. Living in Cleveland, people wonder if you ever got to talk to LeBron James, our most famous athlete who turned into our most infamous one when he left the Cavs for the Miami Heat.

The people who inspire me most are the ordinary people living extraordinary lives. Last week at a book signing Adam Cerny showed up. "I'm Chapter 12," he yelled from the back of the crowded library. The week before that, Don Szczepanski's son -- Don's in Lesson 50 --- came to a book signing. Both Don and Adam left an imprint on my heart.

Fame is highly overrated. Instead of wanting to be famous, I'd rather be memorable. The person who loved me most growing up was my gramma. She'd stand in her driveway and wave until our car got so far away she faded from view. I'll never forget that wave.

Another memorable person was the caboose man. We lived by the railroad tracks growing up, and the train came by during dinner. We'd run to the backyard to wave to the train and the caboose man would throw us candy. We'd scramble for the goodies, then wave and wave, like my grandma did, until the train was out of sight.

She tells the story of the Oberlin mom who took photos of her daughter, including some of the child naked in the shower. The mom, Cynthia Stewart, was arrested and charged. At the time her daughter, Nora, was 8.

I hope to have an interesting discussion about what the rights of parents and children are when it comes to private photos, what's appropriate and what isn't when it come to photographing your children, how the community of Oberlin responded to the incident and what the new concerns are regarding photos of children that go out by email and cell phones.

You can call in and ask a question or share a comment from 7 p.m. to 8 p.m. EST on Wednesday at 888-WKSU-897. You can listen to us live at 89.7 FM or on the podcast at www.wksu.org. And you can email us during the show at regina@wksu.org

I came from a family of 11. Back when we were kids, 1 to 4 kids was a small family, 5 to 8 was mid-sized and beyond that was a large family.

Now most people have no kids or one or two. 

I met the Schmitt's in 1992 when I wrote a magazine story on them. I had a blast with their kids. We played Old Maid non-stop, so tonight when Bob saw me, he gave me a deck of Old Maid cards. One was sticking out. Of course, it was the Old Maid, but he had taped a photo of me over her face. How funny.

They're loving parents whose kids are now 22 to 42. Two of them called during the show. When their son Teddy was 3, he sat at the kitchen table eating Kix cereal. His mom asked him, "Teddy, what are Kix made from?"

"Kittens," he said, then kept eating. Why not, he figured, since applesauce came from apples. You gotta love kids.

We end each show with a question of the week. This week the question is:

Who is your favorite fictional family? For me, it's either the Waltons or The Simpsons.

How about you?

I felt like a kid on Christmas Eve, all the waiting and anticipation and excitement made my heart pound. The topic was close to my heart, about as close as you can get, since I have no breasts.

We talked about hope for those with breast cancer. Our first guest was Nancy Brinker, who made a promise to her dying sister, Susan, which led to the creation of the Susan G. Komen Foundation. That promise has raised $1.5 billion dollars for breast cancer research and education. 

Sophie Sureau, who heads up the northeast Ohio Komen affiliate joined us. So did Dr. Lissa McKinley, whose breast cancer spread to her bones. Lissa's blog is full of hope in the poetry she writes and collects.

The team at WKSU was amazing, especially producer Sarah Eisler Taylor and technical guru Kabir Bhatia. Hope you listen in every Wednesday at 7 p.m. EST.

If you have ideas for future shows, send them along. 

Some people, when you meet them, it's like a Kodak moment. Snap! You never forget the second they stepped into your life. I met Monica at a reception at a fundraiser for the Cleveland Rape Crisis Center.

She had black hair, dark eyes, lipstick that matched her purse, shoes and fingernails, and had an energy that lit up the room. What a human sparkler. She made everyone around her feel just as bright.

Monica left Cleveland for D.C a year or so ago and started up her own company. I was sitting in a book signing at a Costco in May when her aunt stopped by and said, "Did you hear about Monica?" I hadn't.

Monica had a headache that wouldn't go away. It turned out to be brain cancer. She had to close up her business and move back to Cleveland for treatments. When they did tests, they found cancer everywhere, her brain, her spine, her abdomen, her lungs. She called me the night before brain surgery. "I haven't even lived yet," she said. "I'm only 38."

From May til today, she fought like hell to live. She bounced back from brain surgery, from chemo, from brain radiation, from physical therapy  to walk again, from every side effect and set back cancer threw at her.

It's so sad to lose someone who was such a light in this world, and in mine. Monica always greeted me with, "Hi, doll." She's the only one in the world who called me doll. She made me feel so special. That was one of her superpowers. To make others feel special.

She always reminded me to "carry as you climb." Bring others with you up the ladder. Share the journey.

Thank you, Monica, for sharing yours. 

She was Slovak, spoke broken English and always wore an apron, the full-sized kind that covered her dress. She also wore support stockings that ended up rolled up in a donut around her calves. Her long gray hair was twisted in a bun and fastened with dozens of pins shaped like skinny U's.

Looking back, her heart was my home. I always felt most loved around her and in that house on the farm. She taught me how to plant green beans and water them from the rain barrel. She taught me how to color Easter eggs with wax designs. She crocheted doilies and left them to us as her legacy. But her real legacy I discovered the other day when my grandbaby came to visit.

Asher is only 1 1/2, but when he came to my house after not being here for two weeks, he ran to the living room, rested his head on the couch and sighed. Then he ran over to the big chair where I read to him, rested his head on the cushion and sighed. Then he ran to the shelf where I display all his books, grabbed each one and said, "Wow! Wow! Wow!"

I hope my house, and my heart, feel like home to him.

I took my grandson to his first one on Saturday. We drove out to the Randolph Fair in Portage County. I've been going ever since I was a kid when my dad took us. Once, my dad even paid for us to get a real helicopter ride there. It must have cost him a fortune. I'll never forget how cool it was to be airborne for the first time in my life.

The people at a fair seem so real, so down to earth, so kind and friendly. It's like going back in time. My grandson loved the bright ribbons displayed for prize hogs, giant pumpkins and miniature flower arrangements.

I strolled him through all the barns. He got to see, touch and smell cows, horses, rabbits, goats, sheep and roosters up close. He looked perplexed in the swine barn. It could be the smell, or the fact that those little piggies aren't quite as cute as they look in his picture books.  Or maybe he wondered how in the world those kids could be sleeping in the straw alongside their prize animals.

My grandson is a country boy at heart. He sat on a John Deere like he was ready to plow the north 40. Every time a tractor drove by, he squealed louder than the pigs.  

All of these kids are HIV positive or have AIDS. Kevin told me there are about 200 orphanages in Phnom Penh. How sad.

Kevin is in Cleveland to celebrate the wedding of a family member and to celebrate his dad's 80th birthday. He said when the kids found out he was leaving for 9 days, they held a raffle to see who would get to ride to the airport with him to say goodbye. Such small joys.

Here are a few recent emails:

“Thank you for one of the best lines ever: 'Throw your body against the door to keep the demons from advancing and stay put until they go away.' And they do go away….which took me the better part of 50 years to learn, and I’m still learning. Thank you for your consistent insight and compassion. I’ll memorize that line and press play in my head when I need it.” - Gerry

“When I was 16, I got pregnant and married the father of my child. At the age of 17, I was a wife, mother and high school dropout. I felt my life would never be different. I loved my husband and child more than life itself, but I had so many passions, desires, hopes and dreams.

“Over the course of the next 20 years, I had another child and worked as a teaching assistant at a local school. Three years ago, I walked across the stage at a four-year university and was handed the diploma I worked so hard for. Persistence had paid off for me.

"When I read your book, I felt like some of the chapters were written just for me. Wow! I laughed, I smiled, I cried and I woke up. I woke up to the 'rut' I have found myself in and looked in the mirror to see more possibilities than I could have ever imagined.

“My college degree was just the beginning of my journey. Not the end of something I had always wanted. Your book is the most inspiring book (next to the Bible) I have ever read. I cannot begin to tell you how 'fired up' I am about the life I was given. I am a gift to this world, to my family, to God and to myself. Thank you for letting me see things from your perspective. My life will never be the same because of you. I read the book within a day and a half. (I had to stop to sleep!). This book should be presented to every single high school graduate when they walk across the state. It is life changing.” – Ginger

“I just wanted to thank you for writing God Never Blinks. This book has helped me work through a lot of stuff over the last few months. The girl of my dreams left me after a long relationship deciding she couldn't handle my faith. It devastated me for quite a while. Life lost all meaning and I couldn't find joy in any activities. I spent a long time going through as many books as I could get my hands on, and yours was sitting on a shelf and caught my eye while walking through a book store. It has inspired me and helped move me to a place of acceptance and that life will move on and I will not only come out ok but will thrive again.

"Looking at what other people have gone through with situation so much larger than what I have had to deal with, and coming out happier with full and meaningful lives helped me through some tough days. I have also gained a desire for writing and helping those around me and have been reaching out beyond my normal comfort zone to see what is out there. I look forward to your next book. Thank you for sharing your stories.” - Kelly

And thank you for sharing yours.

My new radio show debuts on Sept. 8. The Regina Brett Show will air every  Wednesday night on  WKSU 89.7 FM, Northeast Ohio's NPR affiliate. It will be an hour-long call-in show every Wednesday at 7 p.m. I hope you'll join me every week. 

Here's the official announcement:

Most people don’t go to bed thinking about Senate bills or Supreme Court appointments or the politics in China or the hole in the ozone. They are important issues, but not the most pressing in the daily lives of most Americans. Instead, thoughts turn towards issues like concerns in the workplace, struggling with interpersonal relationships or being a successful parent in a new and different world.

Everyone can find themselves searching for new and better approaches when they are sidetracked by life’s detours. On Wednesday, Sept. 8 at 7 p.m., WKSU launches The Regina Brett Show, an hour-long call-in show hosted by columnist and author Regina Brett.

The weekly radio show was inspired by Brett’s book God Never Blinks: 50 Lessons for Life's Little Detours, an inspirational collection of essays and stories about the lessons that life had taught based on a popular column she wrote after turning 50.

Each show features guests with insights, tips or fresh concepts to help people create a greater life for themselves and for others. Programs will revolve around themes of life’s transitions and universal issues of home, work, community and finding a personal balance.

Listeners can call in and share their comments and concerns at 888-WKSU897 or email Letters@WKSU.org.

She didn't want any fuss, didn't even want any gifts. I suppose if you don't already own something by the time you turn 80, you don't need it.

On the drive to see her, I thought about all the birthdays she celebrated for us. All the cakes and presents she made sure her 11 children got every year, even though she grew up without any fanfare on her birthday. She once told me she had no birthday celebration until she turned 16 and her friends found out it was her birthday.

I bought her a few clothes for fall and a box of salt water taffy from the beach. We raised our glasses of sparkling lemonade in a toast "to life" and asked her what wisdom she had to share now that she was 80.

"Count your blessings," she said.

There's a greeting card that reads, "When I count my blessings, I count you twice."  When I count my blessings, I have to count my mom more than twice. She gave me life, the greatest of all gifts.

He just turned 17 months old and is a chatterbox. He can say "Up," "Aw done," "Mo peez," and "Tank oooh." Put a handful of nectarine slices on his high chair tray and he says, "Neck a reen." Give him some chunks of avocado, and he says, "Cah doh." But he won't say grammy, granny, gramma, or any other facsimile of grandma.

We've tried to trick him into it. We go around the table and say, "Say Poppa." The little guy complies. He'll name Da da, Ma ma, Luke, Ben, Joe, Adrienne (who he calls AD), pretty much everyone around the table and everything on the table. But when it comes to me, he just laughs. For a while I wondered if my name was "Ha Ha."  Not that I would mind.

He does speak the language of love that has no words. We sat on the floor playing blocks yesterday when I stood to check something in the kitchen. He grabbed my toes and wouldn't let go. He tried to pull me back to him by clinging to my toes. And when I leave, he says, "Muh!" and blows me a kiss.

One day he'll reveal who I am to him by name, but for now, his heart knows, and that's enough.

Lovely writing. It's about an old man's last days of life, and a reflection on family, love, loss and beauty.

It reads like one long poem: "The clouds halted...next fell the stars, tinkling about him like the ornaments of heaven shaken loose."

This was my favorite passage:

"And as you split frost-laced wood with numb hands, rejoice that your uncertainty is God's will and His grace toward you and that that is beautiful, and part of a greater certainty...And as the ax bites into the wood, be comforted in the fact that the ache in your heart and the confusion in your soul means that you are still alive, still human, and still open to the beauty of the world, even though you have done nothing to deserve it. And when you resent the ache in your heart, remember: You will be dead and buried soon enough."

Enjoy the ache while you are alive to have one.

A car pulled up to the house next door and a handful of people came out and stood on the sidewalk staring at the house. I couldn't help but hear them talk about whether the owner was home so they could get to see the house they grew up in.

They were too shy to go to the door and knock, so I went over and did it for them. No one was home, so they left. As they were climbing into their car, the owner of the house pulled into the driveway. I ran to the family in the car and hollered for them to come back. They did, and got a tour of their old homestead.

They say you can't go home again. Sometimes you can. It's not the same home, but if it's the house that built you, why not go back and give your thanks?

For men, the death rate fell 21 percent between 1990 and 2006.

For women, it fell 12.3 percent. We're making progress.

The bad news? We still lose 569,490 people a year to cancer in the U.S.

 My buddy Monica is fighting it right now. What an amazing spirit she has. The doctors found spots on her brain, spine, lungs and a tumor in her abdomen. She's only 38. What started out as a headache was really a brain tumor.

At her first chemo, she wore pink shoes, a gauzy white skirt, lovely blouse and a cool hat. She dressed better for chemo than I do for work. I love her attitude. She's been in the hospital for over a month and is still grateful to every nurse, doctor and orderly who stops by.

We made a list of the top 100 movies to watch while she recovers. She's blasting away, driving life into a corner and living the hell out of it. Thoreau was right. Living is so dear. 

What an amazing place the library is. Every summer I leave the library with as many books as I can carry and set out to explore the world.

Yesterday I left with 18 books. Before leaving the house, I went online and printed out the list of Pulitzer Prize winners and finalists for fiction.  Here are a few of the gems I brought home:

Gilead  by Marilynne Robinson

Tree of Smoke  by Denis Johnson

 Shakespeare's Kitchen by Lore Segal

The Echo Maker  by Richard Powers

I also grabbed Anna Quindlen's new book Every Last One and The Dubliners by James Joyce.

Thank goodness Mrs. Kent taught me speed reading at Ravenna High School. Mr. Ricco taught me to love literature in 9th grade.  What a gift a high school teacher can be to you for the rest of your life.

It was last week. I took my grandson, Asher, who is 16 months old to the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo. It's only ten bucks for adults and free for kids under 2 and the parking is free.  What a deal.

The only problem was, the animals were smarter than the humans. While we melted in the 90 degree heat, they hid in the corners of caves and in the shadows of trees. We did get to see a rhino stomping around, a bear licking his paws, sea lions frolicking in the pool and eight giraffes having lunch.

Asher was just as happy to see them as he was picking up rocks and sticks. From his viewpoint, everything in life is as mesmerizing as a giraffe.

The best moment came at the Rainforest. As soon as you enter the building, you're greeted by a giant waterfall. Asher dropped to the floor as soon as he saw it. He sat there staring, his mouth open, drooling. When you're his age, it's okay to drool when you're awed by life. I plopped down next to him, awed by his total attention to such beauty, and tried not to drool.

What an incredible journey it has been. The people at book signings have shared their stories and their wounds and made me realize how we're all hungry for the same things, for love, for peace of mind, for meaning.

Thanks for all your support and for buying the book for yourself and others. Some people have bought ten copies at a time to give out as Christmas gifts. One woman bought a copy for all her sisters, another, for all her nieces. 

Thanks, too, for your emails. Here's one that touched me:

"I just purchased your book and am totally thrilled with it. The first day I read over half of it and it seems like every idea was meant for me. I laughed and I cried.

"I lost my husband in 1974 and my son to a drunk driver in 1988. His wife was 7 months pregnant with my first grandchild. So I have seen my share of pain and suffering.

"That granddaughter had brought me more joy than I ever could have imagined. Your book had really struck my heart and it is as though God dropped it in my lap at just the right time that I needed it!! Always amazes me how much He knows about us, what we need and when. Thank you again,  Rosemary."

People like Rosemary amaze me. After so much loss, they still embrace life, and celebrate what is.

The powerful front page of The Plain Dealer summed it up in one four-letter word, but not the one most of us uttered watching the ESPN special. That word wasn't printable in a family newspaper.

LeBron James has left the building. And the city. And the team he played for these past seven years. It had to end, but we hoped it would end in a championship. But this is Cleveland, so of course it didn't. We're used to disappointments from our sports teams. They are what has made us the most resilient sports fans in the country.

We should have seen this coming, but we held on to hope. We always do.

Contrary to the photos spread across the country, we're not burning LeBron jerseys. Okay, so a tiny handful of fans did, but the majority of us just feel like we got punched in the heart. We'll get over it. We always do.

By noon, the guy who runs Nate's Deli on West 25th, where they make the best tabouli west of the Cuyahoga, said, "We're already over it." 

Goodbye, LeBron.

We'll miss you, but you might just end up missing us more.

Turns out we ended up seeing James Taylor and Carole King on Wednesday at the Q in Cleveland. The last time I saw J.T. he was at Blossom Music Center singing covers from others. We sat in the audience wishing he'd just give us the best of him.

Last night he did. The guitar never sounded better. My heart just melted like it did when I first heard him sing "You've got a friend" back in 8th grade. I played that record over and over for hours. Some nights, I played that one song over and over. It was a promise to me alone that kept me hanging on when I felt myself slipping away.

Music can heal the soul. Catch you when you fall. Lift you back up and send you soaring. Give you a hand to hold when yours is empty. My hand no longer is empty.

My husband held it all night as James sang those lovely words that are so true about my spouse, he "has the power to go where no one else can find me, yes and to silently remind me, of the happiness and good times that I know."

The good times keep getting better. If only I'd known that in 8th grade.

It seems we all have an inner roommate, a voice inside that is constantly throwing us into doubt, fear and anxiety. When you're in the shower, do you actually enjoy the water or is your roommate taunting you about the next project due at work, the weight you need to lose, the people you need to call?

"Your shower is for washing the body, not for watching the mind talk nonstop. See if you can stay conscious enough throughout the entire experience to be aware of what's going on," he writes.

I've been trying it. Man, does that roommate run my life. I've been practicing Singer's advice. When something disturbs me, I ask, "What part of me is being disturbed by this?"  It's my roommate, not me. What a relief. 

Such a powerful word. A friend asked me what it meant to me this week. How do you describe it? Is it even possible?

I consulted my copy of the Declaration of Independence. It's in the same small booklet that has a copy of the U.S. Constitution in it. As a journalist, I've carried it with me to work for two decades. It reminds to never take for granted our Bill of Rights that give us as Americans, Freedom of the Press and Freedom of Speech.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."  I just love those words. No one pursues happiness to the degree we Americans do. 

But the most eloquent words are at the end of that Declaration:  "...for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other, our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor."

What they put on the table when they signed that document on July 4, 1776, makes me tremble. What a commitment they made to this experiment called democracy. I hope they're pleased at how it all turned out.

I know I am. And I am most grateful to call America home.

Luke listens to music I've never heard of, but then we old fogies listen to music he's never heard of either. He mentioned a band name Muse and asked me if I'd ever heard the song "Starlight." Nope, I shrugged. He looked stunned. I kept an open mind and told him I'd check it out.

Later that night, my husband and I were talking to him about songs from musicals we liked and mentioned the song, "I'm nothing without you" from City of Angels.  Nope, he shrugged. Never heard of it. It seemed like we had a bit of a generation gap.

The next day, I checked out Muse on YouTube. Great band. Great song. Great light show. When I told Luke I had listened to it, his eyes lit up. Then he told me he had gone online and listened to "I'm nothing without you" and really liked it. My eyes lit up.

How cool to discover that our taste in music wasn't a divide, but a bridge.

There are no children out. Block after block, the yards are empty. There is no one screaming all-ee-all-ee-in free. No one squealing as they run through front yard sprinklers. No one racing to the tree to holler SAFE! before anyone else.

No Ghost in the Graveyard. No games of SPUD. No kids riding bikes.

Where are they all? I fear they're inside glued to the TV, the internet and video games. Maybe they're all at soccer practice or Little League or ballet class.

It makes me appreciate my mom tossing all 11 of us outside. We made up war games and threw dirt bombs at each other. We had water fights with empty Joy bottles. We played Mother May I, Freeze Tag, Dodgeball, Kickball and Flashlight Tag.

When we finally did come in at the end of the day, we were covered in mosquito bites and scabs and Bandaids, but we had a blast. And summer lasted forever.

The most important thing I've learned about marriage is that, while you do it one day at a time, you also take the long view. When you hit a bump in the road or find yourself facing a Mount Everest of a problem to climb, you walk forward together, step by step, with confidence that it's only another part of a long, amazing journey together.

When I got breast cancer less than two years after we married, my husband stood even closer by my side. "We're in this for the long haul," he told me. Those words carried us through surgeries, chemo, radiation, going bald (me, not him), losing my breasts, and all the assorted problems life tosses your way.

How do you make a marriage last? How do you make any relationship last? You love for the long haul. Love isn't a feeling. It's a choice. You choose to love someone, and you act on that love in this moment, in this day, hour by hour. And when it gets bumpy you don't flee or fret. You tell yourself, "I'm in this for the long haul."

When my daughter was little, her dad wasn't around so my five brothers filled in.

Matt, Jim, Tom, Mark and Michael taught her to ride a bike and throw a football, introduced her to the humor of the Marx brothers and the Three Stooges and taught her to beat them at kickball and Risk. They came to her First Communion and school plays, her Christmas pageants and graduations.

When she got married, she told everyone, "I found a man who is just like my uncles." What a tribute to them, and to her husband.

Happy Father's Day to all those men who aren't fathers, but are the best dads a kid can have.

That's the message I learned at the Worcester Women's Conference in Worcester, Mass. They invited me to give the breakfast keynote, then filled me up with their own wisdom.

I met Bonnie St. John, an author, inspirational speaker and executive coach. She's also -- her words -- "a one-legged black woman." That means she's had three hurdles to leap: being a woman, being African-American and being an amputee. She lost her right leg when she was 5.

Bonnie went on to win medals in the Paralympics in skiing of all things. I can't ski on two legs. This woman zooms downhill at 65 mph on one leg. Amazing.

She told the story of a mom at a hospital whose son was badly burned. The woman asked Bonnie, "Will my son ever live a normal life?"

"No," Bonnie said. "Aim higher."

Wow. Great advice.

When she won the bronze, she sailed down the hill then hit a patch of ice at the bottom and fell. She paused, got back up and went across the finish line. She learned the person who got the gold medal also crashed, got up instantly and finished.

This quote of Bonnie ended up on a Starbucks coffee cup: "People fall down. Winners get up. Gold medal winners just get up faster."

It's about a psychiatrist who thinks his wife is an imposter. I'm not sure I understood most of it, but I enjoyed the writing. My favorite lines:

"In my neighborhood we had a name for people like you -- parsley."

"I've always thought of my mind as an unruly parliament, with a feeble leader, with crazy extremist factions."

And this, "Dogs offer more comfort than I do." Ouch. I used to date guys like that.

For next month, we're going to read a short story that was in the New Yorker called, "Extreme Solitude" by Jeffrey Eugenides. Here are a few choice lines:

"He buried people with his reading lists."

"Madeleine felt impoverished by her happy childhood."

The weeds had taken over. So did newborn maple trees, raspberry thorns and ropes of ivy. Even the grapevine was reaching down taunting the plants. An invader that looked like a strawberry but produces tiny round berries that are inedible had wound around the whole plot.

As I pulled away weeds, grass and uprooted tiny trees -- and it took me three hours -- I realized more berries would have grown if I had visited more often and removed what didn't belong. My strawberries had something to teach me about life. How what you love can get crowded out by nonsense and noise, but also by what is interesting and even good, but simply doesn't belong.

It's clear that we need to weed out the things that are obvious distractions and time wasters, but life can be full of too many good things. Sometimes we have to decide which ones we can focus our attention on so they grow and which ones we have to abandon or root out, the people, projects and plans that aren't ours to tend to.

It's hard to choose, but if you don't, what's most important can get lost, like those precious berries.

My nieces and nephews didn't spend their time here watching TV and movies or playing video games on DS or the internet. They played badminton, painted pirate ships made of wood, made Shrinky Dinks in the toaster oven, had a pillow fight, dropped Mentos into Diet Coke bottles to create fountains of pop and ran around like kids in love with summer.

How refreshing to see kids just being kids.

Every few years my birthday falls on Memorial Day. This year, my thoughts drift to Gunnery Sgt. Robert Gilbert who died from injuries suffered in Afghanistan. I had the honor of interviewing his father who told me what it was like to read the "if I am wounded open this" letter. My heart goes out to him today.

All through high school I wore a POW bracelet with the name Capt. Robert Coady 1-18-69. He was missing in action in Vietnam and later presumed dead. I found his name on the wall in Washington years later. I still wonder who he was and who he left behind. I still have the silver bracelet and will wear it today as a reminder to save a place for those we lost.

Major Michael Davis O'Donnell wrote this on Jan. 1, 1970 from Dak To, Vietnam:

If you are able,

save for them a place

inside of you

and save one backward glance

when you are leaving

for the places they can

no longer go

Be not ashamed to say

you loved them,

though you  may 

or may not have always.

Take what they have taught you

with their dying

and keep it with your own.

And in that time

when men decide and feel safe

to call the war insane,

take one moment to embrace

those gentle heroes 

you left behind.

Michael was one of those heroes. Two months after he wrote that poem, his helicopter was shot down as he was attempting to rescue eight soldiers. 

I met Fred, who 35 years ago was told he had six months to live. He had testicular cancer at 25. He's the happiest guy I've met in a long time. He loves his job at Costco and treats the employees and customers as if they are his family.

I met Johnny, who is ecstatic about his job at Costco. If you ask him, How are you doing? He answers, "I'm living the dream." He's a big believer in abundance. "I look at my life as ministry," he told me.

It's easy to see why. One customer stopped by my table to buy a book as a gift for herself. "Today is my anniversary," she said, then started to cry.

How long have you been married, I asked.

"Twenty three years. My husband died last year," she said. In her cart sat a dozen white roses. She bought them for herself to celebrate their wedding anniversary.

I left feeling like I'd been to church.

A strange thing happened before I got to page 55: I lost my voice. It started with a sore throat and swollen glands then took over my whole head. It's probably just a bad cold, but whatever it is, it forced me to be silent for a few days. No cell phone calls. No endless chattering. No mindless conversations. Every word is precious and painful.

"Nothing has changed the nature of man so much as the loss of silence," wrote Max Picard, a Swiss philosopher. Think about how noisy the world is, the TVs in waiting rooms, the background music in stores, the endless cell phone conversations.

Silence is a good companion. As Confucius said, "Silence is the friend who never betrays."

She was one of the handful of sisters left at the Carmelite monastery where I attend Sunday Mass. She always stood tall with her eyes lowered in the modesty of a monk. Annamae left teaching to become a contemplative.

Priest Don Cozzens gave a lovely eulogy. "The humble find traces of God everywhere," he said. Annamae used to stop people to say, "You are so good." She found goodness in everyone.

The church was packed to overflowing. The white walls never glowed brighter. Two things from the service will remain with me. The joy in the room as we sang, "The hand of God shall hold you, the peace of God enfold you, the love that dreamed and formed you, still surrounds you here today. The light of God beside you, above, beneath, inside you, the light that shines to guide you home to the loving hand of God."

And the back cover of her program with the quote by Saint John of the Cross: "The language God best hears is silent love."

That's what Annamae was. Silent love.

A reader just sent me a copy of Oprah's "No Phone Zone" pledge which I posted on my Plain Dealer blog.

I wrote a column on May 1 about my efforts to stop talking and just drive. It was tough to hang up and drive at first.   I was guilty of having long conversations on longs drives on the interstate just to pass the time. Now I savor the view as I drive and pay more attention to what is in my window, side mirrors and rearview mirror.

Not only has it made me a less distracted driver, it is making me a more mindful driver, mother, wife and friend. Instead of multi-tasking, I'm more present in the one thing at hand and the people I talk to after my drive ends get my full attention, which they deserve.

Don't run with scissors.

Sit ten feet from the TV or you'll ruin your eyes.

Don't go outside with wet hair or you'll catch pneumonia.

Crack your knuckles and you'll get arthritis.

My mom had 11 children and used all of the above plus these:

Take it outside (the football, the fight, the cartwheels.)

You'll be late for your own funeral. (I probably will be.)

If it was a snake, it would have bit you. (Whenever the obvious was right in front of me.)

The best lesson she taught went unsaid: Always make room for others.

We had a huge dining room table. Dad kept adding plywood to the middle to fit all 13 of us. Every holiday, my mom welcomed strays, our friends from college who couldn't get home for Thanksgiving or Christmas. She always made room for more.

More food, more friends, more love.

What a moving experience signing books tonight at The Gathering Place, which offers support services for anyone touched by cancer.

Two women asked me to sign books in memory of their sister, Penny. Then I met Penny's daughter and mother and we all ended up in tears. 

One woman asked me to sign one for her husband who has cancer. "He's just so angry," she said, then started to cry.

A few women were bald from chemo, a few others wore wigs. I showed them the picture of me bald that I keep in my wallet. It reminds me that every day is a good day. Even that day was.

No, life isn't fair, but it's still good.

It's amazing how many people can look at a piece of writing and all see the same thing -- or miss the same thing. It's like that old trick of the eye:

   Paris

  in the

the spring.

In Lesson 36, "Growing Old Beats the Alternative. Dying Young Looks Good Only in Movies" I offered a list of 50 things to do to celebrate turning 50. Somehow I left out Number 28. How? I can't blame old age. I can't blame chemo brain anymore, since it's been 12 years since cancer. 

I even read the entire manuscript for the book on tape version and didn't catch it. Neither did the three people listening. The Swedish translator caught it as she was translating the book from English to Swedish. 

So here it is, pencil it in your book on page 168:

28. Reflect on all the people you would like to meet in the next 50 years.

The emails are starting to pour in from around the country. This one touched me deeply. Cheryl from Atlanta, Ga. wrote:

"I am grateful for your book and your story. I have never written an author regarding a book of any kind. I felt compelled to write. Your story is amazing and I'm sure it has touched many lost souls like mine.

"My husband of 18 years announced last October while on his way to the Home Depot that he no longer wanted to be married to me. That he wanted to pursue happiness. Two weeks later, I moved myself and my 3 children in to a home that we could afford. We were divorced four months later.

"It has been six months and I do not cry every night anymore, but there is still enormous pain. While strolling through the book store, I came across your book. I could not put it down. Almost every lesson applied to me somehow. After reading your book and your lessons, I actually feel like I can make it.

"I feel like I have a purpose in life and it is wonderful. I cannot wait to wake up each day and apply these practical wisdoms in my life. When faced with enormous pain, it is hard for a person to pick themselves up, dust themselves off and keep moving.

"Your book has reminded me that each person has purpose and value. We've just got to believe, and keep moving. Thank you very much, and may God continue to bless you."

For all the Cheryls out there: hang in there. It will get better. The best really is yet to come. Be patient. Just keep taking the next right step as it appears day by day, hour by hour, moment by moment. You are not alone. 

When she turned 75,  I  made a list of 75 things I loved about her for her birthday. The first ten were easy. She gave me five brothers and five sisters. I gave her the list as part of her gift.

This week I signed books at the Jesuit Retreat House and told the story about my mom and that lesson. Many women bought a book to give their moms for Mother's Day. Two women said they planned to write inside the book a list of all the things they loved about their moms.

They decided to list one thing for every year that she had been their mom. What a great gift, to tell your mom on Mother's Day all that you love about her. Don't wait til she turns 75 like I did.

In the last week, I went to Anchorage, Detroit, Philadelphia, Seattle, Baton Rouge, Rochester, Colorado and Wisconsin without leaving home. Satellite radio tours are the best.

On the Ben Merens show on Wisconsin Public Radio, listeners called in with their life lessons:

"You don't have to be sick to get better."

"I'm not going to grow in my comfort zone."

"Find out why the fence was put there before you tear it down."

"You're exactly on time whenever you arrive."

"Do it. Do it right. Do it right now."

One caller offered a haunting three questions:

If you had two minutes to live:

Who would you call?

What would you say?

What are you waiting for?

Over dinner before my book signing last night, my publisher called. How exciting to hear Jamie Raab scream into my voicemail, "Regina, you are a New York Times best selling author!" Did I hear her right? I called Grand Central Publishing and my publicist confirmed it.

God Never Blinks is No. 10 on the hardcover advice list that comes out May 2. The book came out April 13. Wow.

A big thanks to all of you who have bought the book for yourselves and for your moms for Mother's Day and nieces, nephews and kids for graduation. You sent me over the top!

What really sent me over the top were two encounters at the book signing. One man came to the table and thanked me for calling his daughter 16 years ago. She was in high school and pregnant. Since I was an unwed mom at 21, her parents had asked me to talk to her. The man told me she was doing great, had the child -- who is now 16 -- and she's happily married. He thanked me for calling her all those years ago.

Then a woman came up and opened a beautiful scrapbook for me to sign. It held photos of her son, Brian, who died of cancer. He was in second grade.  I had mentioned him in a column that was taped in that scrapbook. He had the biggest grin in his obituary photo. What a joy that little guy was. He still lives in his mom, who volunteers with cancer patients. She asked me to autograph the scrapbook. That little boy's smile is still with me.

A woman just emailed me to ask how to give her mom, who is turning 80, the same gift I gave my husband when he turned 40.

Lesson 32 in my book tells the story of my husband's 40th birthday. He wasn't facing a mid-life crisis. It was more life a mid-life correction, trying to find out how he mattered in the world.

So I made a list of the 40 people who knew him best and loved him most, then wrote to them all or called and asked them to write him a letter or a card and let him know what impact he had on their lives. They were to secretly mail me the cards so I could collect them all in one box and give it to him. The key is to give people an early deadline and to remind them more than once to follow through. And to contact more people than you need, in case someone declines.

They sent long letters and short poems. They told stories from high school and summer youth camp. They thanked him for late-night phone calls and last-minute advice. He was overwhelmed by their love.

"This is the kind of stuff they say at your funeral," he told me.

Why wait? Say it now.

The line at Barnes & Noble in Crocker Park stretched around the book store. I spent two hours non-stop signing books last night. The best part was hearing all the stories people shared. So many told me about their children, their parents, their spouses and all the detours life took them on.

One woman shared that her niece got breast cancer at 24 and got it again at 28. Another shared that her daughter was struggling with crippling depression. So many told me about the heartache in their lives. It felt holy to sit and listen and just be with them.

They bought God Never Blinks to give for Mother's Day, for graduation gifts, for birthday gifts. One woman did her Christmas shopping and bought six copies.

Two people gave me gifts. One woman gave me a lovely wooden cross. Another woman gave me a paperweight with the words: What would you attempt to do if you knew you could not fail?

I would help all these people find their way to hope and joy.

Tonight I signed my name more times in one night than any other time in my life. I don't think that signature looked the same way twice. My handwriting leaves lots to be desired. The nuns used to call it chicken scratch.

The Plain Dealer hosted the first book signing and even fed the crowd, which could be why they were so kind and gracious. It was like a love fest. But then I suppose people who don't like you don't come to your book signings.

My daughter, husband, stepson and son-in-law came. I wore pearls in honor of Lesson 21.  A few women asked me to sign their book with this dedication: Wear the pearls. Yes, today is special enough to wear the good stuff.

I spent yesterday soaking up what it means to be a published author. I've been a journalist for 24 years, but I have to admit, it is pretty wild to see your name on a book. Plus the people at Grand Central Publishing sent me flowers, my stepson brought me a bouquet of daisies and my daughter and her husband bought me two book signing outfits. I didn't know you got gifts. How cool.

People are already calling and emailing to say the book is changing their lives. A lot of men have called in tears saying it's making them look at how they are living versus how they want to be living. My cousin's daughter works at a local library where there are 115 holds on one copy of God Never Blinks.

Last night I heard author Mitch Albom speak about his book, "Have a Little Faith." He spent 8 years talking to a rabbi who shared the secret to happiness: Be satisfied.

Right here, right now, be satisfied with the person you are, with the life you already have. I plan to practice that today.

Today is the day and all I can hear is the voice of Dr. Seuss ringing through my head:

Congratulations!

Today is your day!

You're off to Great Places!

You're off and away!

Today I'm officially an author. My dream came true. Ever since I read Harriet the Spy as a kid, I wanted to be a writer, even though I fought Mr. Ricco in 9th grade English when he forced us to write a paragraph a day. Today I send him blessings. Every time I look at this book with my name on it, I feel a sense of awe and peace and gratitude.

Last night we kicked off the book launch with a family dinner at Nighttown. My grandson's eyes grew big as the bread plates when he heard a blast of jazz coming from the other room. What a great reminder that every day is the day for something new, for something great. 

Every today is the day. 

"Overture, curtain, lights! This is it, the night of nights. No more rehearsing or nursing a part, we know every part by heart..." Somehow with my book launch two days away, that Bugs Bunny Show theme song is running around my brain.

This book truly is my part, it is full of my lines in the script of life. For so many years, I prayed,  asking and often begging, for a new script. A new act. A  new part. At least for better lines. Thank God for unanswered prayers. It all belonged just the way it unfolded.

The Plain Dealer is running excerpts of  the book all week and today launched Life Lessons on bibs, cups, aprons and clocks.  Karen Long, our book editor, wrote a grace-filled article about the hunger we all have for soul food.

I feel a calm in my soul, a completion of sorts. Mother Teresa once said we're not called to be successful; we are called to be faithful. Of course I'd like both, who wouldn't? But the peace inside tells me I have written my part, read my lines, embraced this script and can rest in that alone.

I'm getting flooded with responses today about the column I wrote in The Plain Dealer about why Catholics stay Catholic. A few hundred responses by noon. Most readers agree with me and passed on their reasons for leaving or staying.

A handful invited me to leave and weren't so kind in extending that invitation. A few yelled in the phone, "If you can't follow the rules, get out!"

My friend, Mary Ann Flannery, the nun who runs my spiritual home, the Jesuit Retreat House,  gets frustrated with the nonsense in Rome. She told me  this:  "I love my God and my faith and the spirituality, rising like incense, from our House in the forest."

That retreat house restored my faith in God. A great Jesuit there told me to forget all that stuff about infallibililty, limbo and purgatory. All that matters is this: Did you love?

Wonderful day celebrating being loved, especially by my family. It started with this message at Mass by Father Howard Gray, who said,  "When we have nothing left but who we are, we discover what a gift that really is." He also pointed out that we don't have to earn love, "It's the great Easter gift to us all."

Then he read part of an excerpt from a Modern Love article in the New York Times about a mother's love for her adopted daughter. It made us all cry when he concluded, "Love requires bravery." It certainly does.

Spring is bringing so much new life everywhere. We welcomed into the world a new nephew this week: Christopher James Brett. I've only seen  pictures so far, but C.J. is adorable. I can't wait to feel that newborn skin and angel hair.

My grandson is discovering daffodils and crocuses. He's learning more words. How is it he can say turtle but not grandma? At least he knows who I am. He claps when he sees me. Makes my heart melt. But then he'd probably clap if he saw a turtle.

The April issue of Redbook magazine offers tips on the "one-step secret to hotter sex," how to clear clutter, a recipe for Key Lime Cake and...three books to buy: Fireworks Over Toccoa, by Jeffrey Stepakoff, Imperfect Birds, by Anne Lamott, and God Never Blinks, by yours truly. They're giving away 20 copies of each book. You can enter the contest at redbookmag.com/winit

As for that one secret to hotter sex, here it is:

Breathe.

Apparently deep breaths increase the flow of oxygen and can...well, buy the issue.

I'll never forget the picture of The Good Samaritan on her dresser. She said it was the first thing she looked at in the morning and the last thing she looked at before going to bed. It reminded her to live a life of compassion, a life for others.

Bill lives a gentle, peace-filled life. I trust his selection, which includes books on evolution, Celtic spirituality, the poetry of Rumi, a Buddhist atheist and a spiritual survival guide for gay and lesbian Christians. One book is about heaven, all the things people imagine it to be.

Heaven? I see it every time my 1-year-old grandson claps his tiny dimpled fingers.Where do you see it?

He loves to climb steps. I stand close behind, clutching his onesie as he goes up. The other day he made it all the way to the top of the stairs then froze when he saw a sunbeam in his path. He couldn't figure out what it was. What a delight to see him reach and grab the light only to come up empty again and again. He was mesmerized. So was I, at his profound presence.

My favorite review so far is the one by Toodles! -- you gotta love someone who goes by the name Toodles! -- who said: "Reading this book is like sitting down and reminiscing with your mom, aunt, or grandma about things that have happened in life."

How cool. I feel like actress Sally Field when she cried,  "They like me! They really like me!"

Four years ago today, my cousin Phil lost his 16-year-old daughter. Keely had struggled with bipolar disorder and finally gave up. She took her life one afternoon, just went into the bathroom and hanged herself.

I never knew she had bipolar disorder until she died. Phil and his wife, Binnie, opened our eyes to all who suffer. Every year they ask the family to light a candle for her, and to remember all who struggle. They sent an email this week reminding us that every 16 minutes someone in this country commits suicide. Of those, 90 percent have brain disorders like Keely did, disorders people like Theresa Borchard and the folks at NAMI have dedicated their lives to illuminating.

My yahrzeit candle is burning on the stove, for Keely, and for all who have lost the battle. 

Hope you had a chance to test drive my new website. My book "God Never Blinks: 50 Lessons for Life's Little Detours" comes out on April 13, so I've been doing a countdown on Twitter, tweeting the lessons backwards from 50 down to blastoff day. Only 29 days left. 

My friend, Terry Pluto, told me that no one will care as much about your book as you do. He's probably right; it's like wanting everyone to think your new baby is as cute as you do. The book really is cute, and bright, too. You can't miss that orange cover.