Leanne Shawler, Artist

In the last weeks of Dad's life, I wanted to go and sing him a prayer I had learned in the synagogue, a healing prayer called the Misheberach. Unfortunately, he passed away before I could get to him and the news that he was hours from death wiped out the idea of singing it to him over the phone, whether or not he could hear me.  It became a prayer that I prayed for my dad as I tried to keep vigil halfway around the world. It became a prayer for me as I grieved. I had a notion of singing it at Dad's funeral as a healing prayer for others, but there were already so many sticking their oar in and I also knew myself well enough that it would not be a day that I could sing anything. The first word of the prayer means "the One who blesses". The tune I learned was by Debbie Friedman and it is a mix of Hebrew and English. You may be wondering why I didn't cling to the Lord's Prayer or some other Christian mantra. The words have been a source of comfor...

Here are a few things I learned: Talk to your loved ones , even if they annoy the crap out of you. You may never get the chance to. My dad passed away this week. We are two terrible communicators and not all the calendar reminders in the world were sufficient for me to send an email. (We are separated by an ocean.) And then, after a visit and a promise to talk more, the cancer metastasized. We started talking weekly. The cancer took him quicker than we all thought. I thought I had time to get home. I didn't. Kindness is an incredible gift. I wrote about the kindnesses exchanged when a group of us went to support the local Islamic Center. You can read about this incredibly moving experience here .  Are you creative? (And don’t mind the occasional four-letter word dropped?) The Pug Party Podcast might be for you. It’s Roxanne Cable, mixed media artist, and her husband James, comedy writer, talking about the creative process, their careers, the nerdy things they ...