This is my first Mother’s Day without my mom. And I’ll be honest—I wasn’t sure how it would feel. I knew it would be quiet. No phone call. No reminder to go to Mass. No “Michael, you are full of soup” when I tried to pull one over on her like the wise ass that I am...

Dear Grace, Patrick, and Maggie, Today marks your 23rd birthday—which means I’ve now spent 24 years as a father. How that’s possible, I’m not quite sure, because in my head I’m still 25. But it’s true: 23 years ago, you came into the world nine weeks early and have...

Moving your father into a nursing home is a lot like sending a kid off to college. You set up their bed with fresh sheets, show them where the dining hall is, and pray they don’t come down with a sexually transmitted infection. Thankfully, my father doesn’t have a...

Murphy let out a big yawn and closed his eyes. He hadn’t felt like himself these past few weeks and thought a morning nap might do him some good. Daylight savings time had just begun, and he felt that losing an hour of sleep got harder every year. Why not make up for...

I don’t think there’s anyone who has ever regretted waking up early to watch the sunrise. I’ve spent the past week in Florida taking care of my father, and the early mornings are pretty much the only time I have to myself. The rest of the day (and night) is divided...

Yesterday, I reached a significant milestone in my life—I turned fifty. While I enjoyed spending time with family and friends, there was one person noticeably absent from this momentous occasion: my mother. And so begin the firsts of the firsts. Yesterday actually...

Arlene Carlon was born on August 30, 1933, in Brooklyn, NY, to Nicolas and Maria Fuccillo. She attended Notre Dame Academy on Staten Island and earned a degree from Marymount College in New York City. On October 12, 1957, she married the love of her life, Don Carlon,...

Have you ever experienced a song in such a timely manner that it sends shivers down your spine? Perhaps it's a familiar tune you've listened to countless times, yet in a specific moment, it suddenly resonates with you on a deeper level, offering a newfound...

On Saturday, February 8, I will be participating in Cycle for Survival to raise money for rare cancer research at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK). Why am I riding? I’m glad you asked! And I will answer that question, I promise. But I’m a writer and we...

Do you know how, in your own mind, you consider yourself younger than you actually are? I do anyway. In my head, I’m still in my early twenties. Well, today I was hit in the face with the reality that I’m no spring chicken anymore.  Most Sunday mornings I join my...

Warning, this post was inspired by a pumpkin. More on that later. As another Thanksgiving weekend wraps up, I’m filled with a wide range of emotions. I was happy to have had the kids home for an extended period of time and now sad that they have all started to head...

Today we were given the gift of an extra hour in our day. If today were yesterday, I’d be writing this at 1:05 in the afternoon. Instead, my fingers are touching the keyboard at 12:05. Last night I jokingly said to my kids, “We gain an extra hour tonight, but we...

So I got me a pen and a paper And I made up my own little sign I said, "Thank you, Lord, for thinkin' 'bout me I'm alive and doin' fine" The lyrics above are from a song called Signs, written by Les Emmerson of The Five Man Electrical Band. It was repopularized by the...

We just passed the three month anniversary of my brother’s passing and, to quote the late Jerry Garcia (one of my brother Gregory’s favorites), “I want to know, where does the time go?” How could it have been three months? It’s still so surreal that my brother, my...

On Sunday, I was getting ready to go for a run through Waveny park here in New Canaan when my mother asked me, “Michael, are your shoes tied?” I thought, that is a funny question to ask a 48 year old man, and it stayed in my head as I was starting my run. As I ran...

As many of you know, I’m an avid runner which is ironic because, when I was a kid, I hated running. I was slow, it just wasn’t fun, and I avoided it like the plague. Something happened in high school, though. My twin brother Jimmy joined the cross-country team, which...