Actor and comedian Chris Rock is everywhere these days, promoting his new movie “What to Expect When You’re Expecting.” In the June issue of O Magazine, he muses about his personal life and includes an interesting comment about a favorite memory.

His best memory, Rock says, involves his dad, now gone. He drove a New York Daily News delivery truck and when Chris was a young teenager he would sometimes accompany his dad on his route. Always early in the morning, they would quietly talk to each other like men. Rock says those were great times.

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Last week, my high school classmates gathered to bid a very fond and love-filled farewell to our Gloria: a dedicated wife, mother of two young adults, a teacher and business owner. Filled with love and a truly beautiful laugh, she danced her way through life and toward her impending passing, gifting family and friends with an open heart and willingness to talk about hope and life and heaven. At the very end she stopped talking, for the next adventure in her life required her full attention. During those few days her cancer’s ferocious attack took second stage to an enticing new life only she could see. Then, with the beauty of a graceful pirouette, she let go and moved into the arms of her parents, whom she had not felt in a long time.

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I am fascinated by stories people are willing to tell and in the book, “Listening Is an Act of Love,” as readers are introduced to the beauty found in the lives of ordinary people. Drawing from more than 40,000 interviews, StoryCorps, the largest oral history project in our nation, began their series of best-selling books to give voice to ordinary Americans.

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It was from the comfort of my front porch, where I sat in the sun for a few minutes one afternoon this week, that I observed our cat do the very thing I hate most: hunt. Although he spends the majority of his life inside, the sun was so warm he meowed until I finally let him out. Within minutes, I noticed him dart from the edge of the wooded area that surrounds my home. It was the tiny form of a wild baby bunny hanging from his mouth that prompted me to leap across the lawn in his direction.

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This week I enjoyed a cup of coffee with a friend parenting young children and she asked how I built a solid sense of family with kids who have strong, differing personalities and opinions.

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“I wonder how the nutrition is rated on this cereal,” my daughter inquired one day this week as we shopped together. A quick scan of the bar code with my iPhone provided the information we wanted and helped us make our purchases.

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I searched scripture to find a verse that demonstrates God’s personal attention and I found this verse in Isaiah. And while a lifetime of care is welcomed, sometimes we long for God to shield us, removing our fears and suffering. For Americans living in towns recently decimated by extreme weather, this scripture leaves us wondering what God’s care looks like, at times.

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Although we are not a family who enjoys an Irish heritage, we eat traditionally Irish food on St. Patrick’s Day in honor of my dad, who was born in his grandmother’s farmhouse in Lincoln County, Okla., on March 17, 1928.

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While downloading some favorite movies onto my husband’s iPad, I came across “Field of Dreams.” Released in 1989, it stars Kevin Costner as Ray Kinsella, a restless and regret-filled Iowa farmer. He bulldozes his prime crop of corn, builds a lighted baseball field and risks bankruptcy when he decides he can no longer ignore a mysterious voice out in the corn that whispers, “If you build it, he will come.”

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It happened Sunday afternoon this week when I decided to enjoy a short nap in my family room recliner, a blanket and chihuahua on my legs for added warmth. I had been watching small birds work their way around our back deck and as I dozed I heard a chorus that soothed my tired being.

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I love a good joke and even more, a good story. I’m particularly fond of lingering around the table with my young adult children, just to connect and talk. But when I can only reach them by phone my familiar prompt often gets things going: It’s so good to talk with you. Got any good stories to tell me?

One story comes from a friend of my daughter who had been jarred awake by the alarm she’d set. Even though she was tired she pulled herself out of bed and made her way to the kitchen. She had a lot to do and knew that even though she wasn’t really hungry, she’d better eat breakfast and get a move on the day. As she walked through the house she caught a glimpse of herself in a mirror: her eyes were only half open and streaked slightly because she’d been too tired to remove her eye make-up the night before. She saw her dark curls as nothing but a disorganized mess on her head.

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For the first three decades of my life I lived in a region that celebrates the sun. It is for this reason that I have, for the last 23 years, celebrated snow in the Pacific Northwest with the enthusiasm of a kid. If I learn that it might snow overnight, I leave the back porch light on so I can easily make my way to a bedroom window to conduct snow checks throughout the night.

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I can’t say I’m a devotee of spiritualist Marianne Williamson, but I agree with her when she says, “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our ‘Light, not our Darkness,’ that most frightens us.”

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