Stephanie Piper

There are those who believe that when you die, you will be required to watch a movie of your life. The whole story will be there, reel after reel projected on some celestial screen.

A year ago at this time, I began to feel the earth shift under my feet. My cell phone rang in a hotel lobby, and I sat down on a leather bench and listened to my sister tell me that ...

So here’s a news flash. The latest research indicates that helicopter parents are doing their children a grave disservice.

I am beset with a host of first-world problems, domestic disasters so trivial in the overall scheme of things that I am ashamed to list them, even to myself.

Eight days after Newtown, he told us that it would actually be a good thing to go to heaven. He had not been told of the event.

Maybe we’ll skip the tree this year. We won’t be home for Christmas, so really, what’s the point?

When this column appears, my favorite month will be history. Pumpkins will vanish from front porches, and store windows will start to sprout the first plastic Santas and evergreen garlands. The light will shift from muted gold to the pallid ...

Two college students are talking outside my window. They are discussing their futures. “I’ll be an old man before that happens,“ says one. “I’ll be, like, 30.” His friend considers this. “Oh, you mean really old,” he says.

The general consensus is that the snake has gone.

Here’s what I learned on my summer vacation: There is no more potent antidote to bleak introspection than a 2-year-old girl in monkey pajamas.