My mom threatened to kill us both once. I’d gotten a bad grade in Chemistry in the first quarter of my junior year of high school. The first person I’d ever deeply cared for had broken up with me, and I couldn’t focus on school. When my grades came out, my mom was livid. She…

It always blows my mind when the best of us are also the worst of us. My stepbrother Bill fit that bill. Bill was smarter than 99% of the people around him. He was witty. Charming. Handsome. Sharp. Too sharp—cuttingly sharp, so much so that he’d hurt you on purpose. He’d hurt those closest to…

On January 6, 2021, my son was a week old when Americans stormed the Capitol at the urging of a President who didn’t want to give up power. I had always been a proud American—until that moment. For the first time in our democracy, the peaceful transfer of power wasn’t honored, and we were watching…

My best friend from high school died on December 16, 2008. He was the “Chandler Bing” of our friend group—charming, charismatic, witty, and wildly fun. But he was also our “Matthew Perry,” struggling deeply with mental health and addiction. After many years battling manic depression and substance abuse, he died by suicide, like my father,…

My sisters and I spread our mom’s ashes in the Adirondacks last October, in the same stream where we’d watched her scatter our father’s ashes nearly 30 years earlier. She died last April from complications due to cigarette smoking. She was just one of almost 500,000 people who die from cigarettes each year, but she…

Our mother loved fiercely. She loved our father fiercely. She loved her children fiercely. She loved my stepfather fiercely and she loved my stepbrothers fiercely. Sometimes she loved us so fiercely, it hurt. Sometimes it could be so sweet too. Deborah Sullivan Lee was a proud daughter of Houston. Her family came to Texas by…

On Saturday mornings, we go to Valley Park in Hermosa Beach. We go so Mac can go to Sportball, where he runs, kicks, throws, and laughs. He plays the “sport of the day” with about 12 to 15 other toddlers. Mostly, we parents chase after our kids as they find something more interesting and run…

“Moriendo Vive” is a Latin phrase that means “In dying, live.” It is often used to express the idea that a person’s legacy or impact can live on even after their physical death. This phrase has been used in various contexts, such as literature, music, and art. Some people also interpret it as a reminder…

What I posted on Facebook on April 30th, 2022. “It is with great sadness to share that my Mom passed away unexpectedly yesterday due to complications from COPD. She was 72 years old. My mom was an amazingly tough woman, for better or worse. When my dad committed suicide in 1993, she held my sisters…

Drew was my dad’s friend from Stanford. My dad was a few years older than Drew. They were both lawyers, both had California roots, and both eventually settled in Houston. Drew was one of the few friends my dad had when he was struggling financially and didn’t have many. After my dad died in 1993,…