Latest Connections headlines

Like the finches camped out on our porch, we needed to let our kids fly.

We worried that my grandmother’s 100th birthday party would draw a small crowd. How happy we were to be wrong.

Chatting and laughing, my mom and her old pals set an example that endures decades later.

The letters stashed in an old desk stirred up painful memories — and reminders of my parents’ love.

My bruised heart needed unconditional love. I found it on my phone, but not quite where I expected.

My grandmother’s spirit stays with me decades later, especially at the breakfast table.

His simple analogy helped me understand, and made having a brain that works differently seem cool.

What does it take to get an aging rocker to part with his beloved vinyl records?

After almost a quarter century, our goofy couple nicknames still have a nice ring to them.

More than half a century later, the unbreakable bond between my dad and his uncle stays with me.

We learned golf etiquette as early as we learned table manners, owned proper course attire, and mastered driving golf carts long before cars.

We had protected him and cared for him, but for his new life to truly begin, we had to let him go.

Fly fishing provided the occasional détente from the battlefield between daughter and father, and helped us nurture our precarious relationship.

Unlike everyone else, my toddler son doesn’t know I have cancer — and that’s a relief.

From a Tinder profile photo at the Marathon finish line to the altar, one step at a time.

I ask — and ask and ask — until finally, in the dark where I can’t see her face, she tells me.

Watching my son on the baseball field was frustrating — until I realized I had the game all wrong.

We’re learning about schools she’s interested in attending — and, when she looks up from her phone, each other.

This couple is still happily sharing costar billing after 35 years.

Our marriage was mired in something far worse than a rough patch.

Although he died when I was young, he lends a hand when I really need one.

My lighthearted grandfather was in pain, and out of jokes. What could I do?

I learned from my mother to be frugal with money — and affection. An unexpected expert helped me change my ways.

We were so young when he died, but my older brother is always with me.

My mother raised me to love Broadway shows. As her memory falters, can we still share that feeling?

I was only a toddler when Aunt Brenda died, but she’s never far away.

Winnowing down the possessions of a lifetime shows what really matters.

My mother was gone, but I still felt her presence. A tale of martinis and coincidences.

At 91, my mother already knew what I have only recently learned about the power of exercising in groups.

During the most wonderful time of the year, sadness sometimes, somehow finds a way to creep in.

My mother isn’t crazy about her profile, but I don’t mind mine — it reminds me of her.

Sixty years later, Mom’s Christmas tablecloth captures our family history.

Now that I am beginning to experience glimpses of the aging process, I feel the need to tell him what I’m going through.

A lifetime after a brother’s death in Vietnam, looking for him in Washington — and finding him in Maine.

Lessons from my father, a polio survivor, about living life with no regrets.

All our lives, our mother made sure we were in the right place at the right time — together.

A framed print of the composer had watched over generations of my piano-playing family. Would he ever come home with me?

It took me three years to get my driver’s license as a teen. And now it’s my daughter’s turn.

He shopped for them on his lunch break, and brought them home to expand my horizons.

We were friends from very different cultures, but the trailblazing classic spoke to us both.

My father’s clothes were the least remarkable thing about him. After he died, wearing them gave me comfort.

My grandmother had always shown up for me. The least I could do was return the favor.

As a smart-mouthed preteen, I scoffed at our family’s resourceful gardener, and she answered with love.

Through literally thousands of daily e-mails, we became friends and stayed close over 13 years.

My son and I always related through music. I gave him his space when he went off to school, but followed his listening habits closely.

My immigrant parents embraced their new home, showing me and my sisters how to honor both our roots and our future.

The island has a reputation as an exclusive summer enclave, but my favorite resident was a year-round, down-to-earth legend.

She always wanted to be buried with “her people.” The way she defined that term changed, and changed me.

As we age, daily check-ins just feel natural. After all, that’s what Mom would want.

As the years passed and my children grew, tomatoes and zucchini grew along with our friendship.