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I Am My Mother’s Mother
I come from a long line of strong, risk-taking women.
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Does Cancer Run in Your Family?
I hate to say it, but there’s rot in my family tree. Generation after generation, people are dying of breast and ovarian cancer. A lot of good people died too soon. After a while, it becomes obvious that this can’t be a coincidence. Past generations had to fly blind, which is part of the reason…
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Generational Changes
Recently I had the good fortune to meet a distant cousin. Her maternal great-grandfather and my paternal great-grandfather were brothers. And all this time she’s lived about 5 miles from me. Talk about a small world. That part of the family comes from France, and as we talked over lunch, a few things struck me.…
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Why I’m Not Worried About the Future
It is my great privilege to count amongst my circle of friends two amazing women in their 20’s. Both of them have incredible futures ahead of them, and I can’t wait to bear witness. I am in awe of both of them, because they really seem to have it together, at least much more so…
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Transplanting your Roots
I have always envied people with familial roots–People who have lived in the same house or farm or town for generations, people with relatives right down the street, people with family plots in the local graveyard. Roots imply stability and history and solid foundations that the rest of us, of a more nomadic bent, simply…