By Nancy Patrick Several years ago, I wrote a piece about how my mother’s life seemed to become smaller as she aged (THE CASE OF THE SHRINKING WOMAN | Spirit Of Abilene). I had many opportunities to observe as time and age-related health issues began to change both my parents’ lives. As I watched their lives evolve, I thought I

By Nancy Patrick People who have known me only as an adult express surprise when I tell them that I was one of the quietest students in all my classes. Because of my extreme shyness, I sometimes felt intimidated by more outgoing children who seemed confident and self-assured. One of my elementary school teachers actually told my mother during a

By Nancy Patrick When I began teaching school in 1972, I viewed my call to teach young people as a way to serve God in the secular world. As a teenager, I played with the thought of becoming a missionary, but I left that idea when Mike and I fell in love and married at such young ages. We lived

By Nancy Patrick Some words are overused; others are not used enough. One of those words is the subject of this essay. We hear the word “forever” quite often but seldom think of its real significance. We use it when we pray (keep us forever near you, Oh, God), when we marry (I will love you forever), and when we

By Nancy Patrick As Mike and I have spent the last six weeks living in our new home in Wesley Court, I have become acquainted with our new neighbors and found that, although our lives have varied greatly, we now find ourselves sharing a similar chapter in our senior years. In a recent essay, I wrote about the scope of

By Nancy Patrick As a writer, I confess not only to fretting over word choice but sometimes to an entire essay. This particular essay is my fourth attempt to express my feelings about the complexities and implications of fatherhood, and I still question if I have accomplished my goal. I begin with a poem by Robert Hayden I taught in

By Nancy Patrick For some time, I have tried to write an article for Spirit of Abilene about every other week, but lately my life has demanded that I take an extended hiatus. Certainly not a vacation or time of relaxation, my husband and I have busied ourselves packing up our household and moving to a lovely home in Wesley

By Nancy Patrick We often think of lives as chapters of a book. Our parents document the early years for us in baby books and school milestone mementos. We feign embarrassment and roll our eyes at them, but our own day of reasoning arrives sooner than we expect.  Mike and I married at ages eighteen and twenty and have been

By Nancy Patrick In Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, Juliet asks Romeo the title question when she tries to rationalize the relationship between herself, Juliet Capulet, and her lover, Romeo Montague. As a Capulet, Juliet knows that her family and the Montague families hate each other. These young people have lived their short lives within the framework of this longstanding feud.