Mary Novaria

This piece first appeared in the Huffington Post.  This is my fifteenth Father's Day without my dad. He died of heart failure four days before St. Patrick's Day, a couple of months shy of his 79th birthday, and after a year of hospice care. He took his last breath quite peacefully while I sat by his bedside with my mother and Seamus, my parents' big, fluffy, orange and white cat. I was stunned by how clear it was that my father's spirit had left his body. Only his earthly container remained. A shell of him lay still and quiet and cool on the bed ... but he was gone. And so was a family history I'd neglected to plumb.  Some people seem to be supernaturally connected to loved ones who've gone on to the great beyond. Not so for me. Oh, I can imagine what my father might say or think about something, what movies he'd like to see, or what books he'd be reading if he were still here. And I've wondered how much he might know about our earthly lives h...

This piece first appeared in the Huffington Post. They say moving is one of life's greatest stressors -- right up there with death and divorce. I'd like to see the stats on moving as a cause of death and divorce because if anything will make you feel murderous and conflicted, it's moving. After living in the same home for 18 years and in the same community for nearly 30, my husband and I relocated halfway across the country and have now moved three times in less than three years. So, you'd think I'd have moving down to a science by now. I don't. Unless it's a Psych 101 experiment designed to discover how many ways a move can make you completely insane. After a charming apartment that was close to the beach but way too small, and a house whose breathtaking view did not outweigh its considerable deficiencies and not-so-charming landlord, we found The One. Or so we thought. My husband and I are realistic enough to know that nothing's perfect, but ...