“I don’t get it,” I said to my husband of two weeks as we drove away from the first family reunion I’d ever experienced. His extended family was huge and totally opposite of mine. I had only one aunt and uncle and when we added another two chairs ...

Family can be such a joy one moment and then be a source of contention the next. One minute you feel so blessed to have them and in another minute because of what someone says or does, one can feel so shut down by the very family they feel blessed...

On a whim, I typed my great-great-grandfather’s name and “Ireland” into the internet search bar. Turns out there are innumerable Patrick McDonalds from Ireland, so I refined my search by adding “Ohio” and the approximate date that he immigrated to...

I tried to sleep on the narrow bench, eight months pregnant, scared and drained, as I held my baby's hand through the bars of her crib at the government hospital overseas. The nurse had poked her far too many times, trying to find a vein for the I...