Category Global health and disparities

FMM 6 12 2026 No Catastrophizing Necessary

“A small body of determined spirits fired by an unquenchable faith in their mission can alter the course of history.” ~ Mahatma Gandhi. When I switched careers (somewhat) after the age of 50, I learned something very important: you cannot teach what you do not know.  My first career (first love) was nursing, and I […]

FMM 6 5 2026 Watch me!

“Children should have enough freedom to be themselves – once they’ve learned the rules.” ~ Anna Quindlen. I always knew I wanted to have kids, to have a large family. I had grown up as the youngest of five, then six (my informally adopted older sister came to live with us when she was seventeen), […]

FMM 5 29 2026 When the Wood is Green

“Trust dies but mistrust blossoms.” ~ Sophocles. Full disclosure: Having recently returned from a road trip that ended at 3:00 am a few days ago, I am still lagging.  We traversed eleven states to our furthest destination, and returned through an additional five, seeing beautiful countryside, trees in full Spring-time greenery and blossoms, and avoiding […]

FMM 5 15 2026 Hold a Medz

“America’s present need is not heroics but healing; not nostrums but normalcy; not revolution but restoration.” ~ Warren G. Harding. My father, a Christian and a Pacifist, went before a tribunal during World War II to defend his belief that he had no right to kill his fellow man.  His appeal was approved, but unlike […]

FMM 5 1 2026 Legends and Myths

“Every story I create, creates me. I write to create myself.” ~ Octavia E. Butler. I was an avid reader as a child.  Well, I guess I still am! But I remember in particular a book called ‘Swallows and Amazons’.  It was a story of imagination, told from the point of view of a group […]

FMM 4 24 2026 Life Goes On

“Though lovers be lost love shall not;And death shall have no dominion.” ~ Dylan Thomas. Like most children raised in a Christian home, my encounters with death included the reassurance of heaven and an afterlife.  Three of my four grandparents had died either before or soon after I was born, so I grew up only […]

FMM 4 10 2026 One Big Family

“Life is the flower for which love is the honey.” ~ Victor Hugo. Many of us put a lot of thought into naming our children.  Whether it is trying to find a name which has family significance, like naming a child after a grandparent, or to honor a culture, we forget what life will be […]

FMM 4 3 2026 What the X?

“You must be a lotus, unfolding its petals when the sun rises in the sky, unaffected by the slush where it is born or even the water which sustains it!” ~ Sai Baba. By courtesy of being connected once more to the world wide web and one of its search engines, I learned something new […]

FMM 3 27 2026 Disengoogled at Sea

“The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page.” ~ Saint Augustine. It is over sixty years since first I sailed across the Atlantic Ocean, a child of almost eight, with my family.  We were headed from the UK to Jamaica, to begin our life in a small town […]

FMM 3 20 2026 Soul Music

“Music doesn’t lie. If there is something to be changed in this world, then it can only happen through music.” ~ Jimi Hendrix. My parents were sixteen and nineteen years old at the outbreak of World War II, and living in Liverpool, UK, a city which was the most heavily bombed outside of London.  In […]