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Mourning and grief

There was a time when you came into existence, and there is a time when you will exist no more. Like the saying goes, no one gets out of this life alive. Unfortunately, that includes the people we like and love. Encounters with death are inescapable. The longer we live, the fewer people with whom we have been close. Some people would call that the cycle of life. When a person with whom we have been close dies, we enter a state of grief, mourning, and bereavement. To really understand what grief is about, you have to remember how intimately interwoven your life is with the people ...

Physical therapy graduation: it fits with the season

For the first time in almost 20 years, I found out what it’s like to again be a graduate. I completed two months of physical therapy at Avera Therapy after my hip surgery. The fact that it coincided with high school and college events made me think of how any graduation is a special time. A physical therapy graduation might sound different from an academic one. In reality, however, they have some important similarities. For one thing there’s a sense of accomplishment. After I had surgery I was dependent on my walker. I had to half step my way up and down stairs. I rode the ...

Coping with problems and life

Life has its ups and downs, good and bad, right and wrong. How would you know good days if it wasn’t for the bad ones? How would you learn what not to do if you didn’t make mistakes? Since that is the way life seems to be, how do we handle the bad times? Those bad times cause stress. Stress is triggered when something occurs that demands that you do something about it. The things that trigger stress are called stressors. To survive, we have to learn to cope with those stressors, deal with them effectively, and overcome them. There are any number of stressors with which ...

Trump returns Pennsylvania steel to backbone of America

Flanked by a sea of steelworkers dressed in their orange safety jackets and hard hats, President Donald Trump was given a hero’s welcome at the Mon Valley Irvin Works ( West Mifflin, Pennsylvania) to mark the signing of the U.S. Steel-Nippon Steel deal, the largest investment in state history. “With the help from patriots like you, we are going to produce our own metal, make our own energy, secure our own future, build our country, control our own destiny, and we are once again going to put Pennsylvania steel into the backbone of America,” Trump said of the deal. The deal to ...

Toughening in

“I just need to toughen in!” So said Old Frank, my new landlord at the time. I was twenty-one in the winter when I rented a small dairy farm, sight unseen, from Old Frank. Old Frank was several years past his eightieth birthday when he and I first crossed paths in a waiting room. Frank was garrulous and gregarious and soon shared with me that he had a problem: the tenant of a dairy that he owned was exiting the farming business. “I’m too old to farm anymore,” Frank lamented. “I don’t know what I’m going to do with that place!” I had been striving desperately ...

Celebrating our progress and preparing for what’s ahead

As another school year comes to a close at Marshall Public Schools and we celebrate graduation weekend, I’m filled with pride and gratitude. Watching our seniors cross the stage is a powerful reminder of our mission to guide, support, and prepare each student for the road ahead. Every graduate has their own story of growth and determination, often made possible by the care and commitment of our staff, families, and community. At the same time, we look to the students still filling our classrooms — those still discovering who they are and where they’re headed. Their journeys are ...