My Mother's Kindness
My mother, around 1964
My mother, Rita, was born in 1944 to Clifford and Ruth Pence — the youngest of four and the last of them still living. She was always close to her three older brothers, Paul, Don, and Troy. Paul, the oldest, died in 2024.
She grew up in Campbell’s Creek, West Virginia. Her father was a coal miner and her mother a homemaker, and the family didn’t have electricity until she was in middle school. Despite their limited means, she describes the family as “wealthy” — rich in love for each other and faith in God. She was a good student and enjoyed growing up in West Virginia. When she was a 17-year-old senior in high school, the family relocated to Michigan. That was a major adjustment for her.
She earned a bachelor’s degree in education at Michigan State University and had an exemplary career as a high school English teacher. At Bath High School she sponsored several senior trips and led the drama program, and she was listed in Who’s Who Among America’s Teachers. Decades after she retired, former students still call and visit her.
She met Jerry Spriggs and they married in 1969. She raised two boys, my brother Matt and me. She was wonderfully patient and kind with us, and she sacrificed for our family in more ways than I understood at the time. I had health problems as a baby and a young child, and she wouldn’t leave the hospital until I was discharged — often sitting up in a chair beside my bed all night. She made sure Matt and I felt loved and celebrated on our birthdays, at school events, and at every other milestone.
She was meticulous about remembering birthdays and anniversaries, and not only for family. She kept shelves of greeting cards for every occasion, along with her mailing lists. Sending cards and gifts was nearly a full-time job. Even after Matt and I were grown, her love for babies and small children never faded. Several neighbors thought of her as a surrogate grandmother, and she kept sending them cards for years.
My mother in her kitchen
My mother is remarkably intuitive and empathic, and unusually gifted at encouraging people. Julie and I lived with my parents for a few years after we married in 1996, and Julie came to know her well in that time.
In 2021, my mother began a serious health decline. It has been very hard on her, but I still see her kind heart in our time together. Over the past few years she has lost the ability to send cards and to keep track of the dates that mattered so much to her. I imagine a lot of people have noticed, and miss hearing from her.
I work in the mental health field, and I find it deeply fulfilling to help people work through what’s hurting them. Julie once told me I inherited my mother’s emotional sensitivity. I took that as a high compliment — I am very proud of my mother’s kind and giving heart.
I am sure that much of my best work with patients traces back to her. In a real way, I think of her as present in it — and I doubt I’m the only one who feels that. Her health has interrupted the cards and the calls, but not the kindness behind them. That is still going, carried now by the people who received it.
My mother and me
My dad came home today. He has approximately 2 more weeks of recovery. He likes to stay active so being on light duty is a change for him.
My dad is feeling better. He would like to come home, but the doctor wants him stay a couple more days in the hospital. He will likely come home on Tuesday if he continues to recover well.
My dad was admitted to Forsyth novant hospital in Winston Salem on 9/4/2026 due to concerns of infection following surgery. We hope he will go home on Tuesday.
My dad has had complications from surgery and is being admitted to the hospital. I brought him this morning at 7:45am. We planned for outpatient. I am glad he is getting the care he needs and hope his recovery will go well.
My dad went back for surgery at approximately 11am. This is his 3rd surgery this year. He is looking forward to having it behind him.
A Good Day at Work
Photo by Kindel Media on Pexels
I love my job as a therapist. Listening to people’s stories, learning about mental illness, diagnosing a problem, and developing a plan are all interesting. What really drives me is making a difference in the lives of my patients: helping them recover from hurts and challenges and be happier and healthier. Sometimes that involves helping them develop a new life skill or learn something that helps them manage their situation better. Other times it is simply listening to them and communicating concern for their wellbeing — that I care about them.
Another aspect of my work that is fulfilling is helping my coworkers. Sometimes I am part of a team working together on a project. Other times I mentor a newer coworker. I often provide consultation to primary care providers and nurses.
I have worked in the same healthcare system for the past 20 years. There have been many changes, but the same parts of the work still hold. Like many in healthcare, I feel like it is much faster paced now, and our staff are always asked to do more with less — more patients seen with fewer team members.
That faster pace has left fewer moments to connect with coworkers informally. I still do it, because I find it essential both to my job satisfaction and to what we are actually there to do, but I have to be intentional about it. Those connections don’t happen as easily as they did ten years ago.
I am grateful for the ones I had today. Two coworkers and I interviewed several potential new team members. Most of our time together was task oriented, but we also had some time to socialize and support each other. I needed that, and I want to make more space for it — for me and for the people I work with.
When I got home this evening, I spent a while looking at family photos. The ones I keep coming back to are the casual shots of my daughters in elementary school and as teenagers. Those are special memories, and I hold them fondly.
Connection at work, memories at home. It was a good day.
A Summer Worth Remembering
Mother’s Day 2026
The summer of 2026 went by quickly. It was a hot one here in North Carolina, and Julie felt it far more than I did — she’s outside for most of her day delivering the mail, so a high number on the thermometer isn’t an abstraction for her the way it is for the rest of us. What I’ll remember about this summer, though, isn’t the heat. It’s the people we spent it with.
We’re grateful for the time we had with my parents. Amanda and Emily were both able to join us for Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, and having all of us together twice in six weeks is not something I take for granted anymore.
Father’s Day 2026
Julie and I never celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary. That was 2021, and I spent much of that year working through one health problem after another, including several hospitalizations. By the time the day came around, marking it was the last thing on either of our minds. It’s a small loss next to being that sick, but it stayed with me.
So the 30th, on July 27th of this year, meant more than the number suggests. We didn’t travel anywhere. We ate some good meals, spent a day at the Greensboro Science Center, and took a week of vacation to rest and enjoy each other. After thirty years, that turned out to be exactly right.
The zoo there was an afternoon of standing in front of one enclosure after another. We happened to catch the penguins at feeding time, spent a long while with the tigers, and both came away talking about the pygmy hippo.
Our anniversary dinner — July 27, 2026
The centerpiece was dinner at Ryan’s Restaurant in Winston-Salem. Julie ordered the New York strip and I had the filet. Both were cooked exactly the way we asked for them and unusually flavorful — it may be the tastiest meal I can remember eating. The atmosphere was perfect for a romantic evening. It was an expensive dinner, but well worth it, and the manager brought us a free dessert and a $25 gift card when he learned it was our first visit and our anniversary.
We ate at Milner’s American Southern that week too. The food didn’t quite reach Ryan’s, but it was excellent, and the highlight was the live jazz. A good meal with Julie and jazz playing in the room is close to my idea of a perfect evening.
Jerry and Rita — 57 years of marriage
In August, my mom and dad celebrated 57 years of marriage. Fifty-seven years. Julie and I aren’t quite through our first thirty, and the further we go, the better I understand what a number like that actually costs and what it’s worth. They are wonderful parents, and I’m grateful for the time we have together.
Emily, Dave, Julie, Amanda, and Will at Amanda’s baby shower — August 22, 2026
And the best news of the summer: Amanda and Will are expecting. The baby is due in December, and both Amanda and the baby are healthy. This will be our first grandchild.
A hot summer, and a full one. I don’t expect the fall to be quiet.
Dad's Surgery
Pre-Surgery
My dad had knee replacement surgery on 4-29-2026. My dad, my wife Julie, and I arrived at the hospital at 11:00 AM. His pastor and two other men from his church came and prayed for him while he waited to get checked in.
I went back with him for the preparation at about 11:30. Julie gave him a hug before he went back. Only one family member can go to the preparation area. He met the medical team and they prepared him for surgery.
Surgery
His surgery began at approximately 2:00 PM. They estimated that he would be out of surgery and awake by approximately 5:00 PM, and I would be able to see him about 20 minutes after he was brought into his room. At that point, he could have additional visitors.
His medical team told him that there is a good chance he will be able to go home today. He is hopeful he will be able to go home tonight. He is prepared to stay if needed. I will stay at the hospital until we know if he will be going home or spending the night at the hospital.
Post-Surgery
I have taken two weeks off from work to help my mom and dad while he recovers. His knee problems have been difficult for him. I am hopeful the surgery will be a big improvement to his quality of life.
The surgeon called me a few minutes after 3:00 PM. He told me that the surgery was successful. My dad will need some time to recover. I will probably be able to see him at approximately 5:00 PM.
My dad spent the night at the hospital. He was able to go home on Thursday. He is in pain and very tired, but optimistic that the surgery will help him. A physical therapist will be coming to our home for him to start his therapy in the next few days.
An Unwanted Pause
For most of the past six years, I managed to avoid COVID. Friends got it. Family members got it. At a certain point I started to wonder whether I might be one of the lucky ones who simply slipped past the thing. Then, in the last week of March, it finally caught up with me.
The virus itself was rough — fatigue, fever, the particular kind of body ache that makes getting up for a glass of water feel like a negotiation. The harder part, for me, was what it did to my asthma. My lungs tend to be the first thing to complain in any respiratory illness, and COVID lit them up. I ended up out of work for a full week, which is not something I take lightly.
Somewhere in the middle of that week, lying in bed longer than I would ever lie in bed by choice, I started to notice something. I was thinking. Not the anxious, distracted thinking of a normal busy day, but the slower kind — the kind I usually don’t make room for. When the ordinary machinery of life shuts down, you can finally hear what’s been running underneath it.
What I heard, mostly, was a quiet set of questions about my own health. I have known for a while that my sleep has been inconsistent. I have known that my nutrition could be better. I have known, as a guy with a replaced hip and a genetic connective-tissue condition, that my body needs more intentional care than the bodies of people who have never had to think about collagen. I knew all of this. I just hadn’t done much about it.
COVID made me sit still long enough to stop pretending otherwise.
As a psychologist, I spend a lot of my professional life talking with people about behavioral change. I know the science. I know the stages. And I know — because I’ve seen it in my patients and I’ve felt it in myself — that insight alone does not produce change. You can understand yourself beautifully and still do nothing differently.
So once I started feeling better, I decided to do some things differently. I’m getting more sleep, guarding my evenings and letting my phone rest before I do. I’m paying closer attention to what I eat — more protein, more vegetables, fewer of the snacks I had been reaching for without really deciding to. And I’ve started an actual exercise program, something more structured than the vague intention to “walk more” that I’d been carrying around for a year.
The deeper reset, though, was not really about food or exercise. It was about re-centering on what I actually value: faith, my marriage, my daughters, my work, the people I walk alongside at church. My health is not separable from any of those things. It is the body in which I love my wife, raise my daughters, sit with patients, and pray with my church family. Neglecting it is, in a quiet way, neglecting them.
Behavioral change is hard. It’s hard for my patients, it’s hard for me, it’s hard for everyone. The goal isn’t to stop finding it hard; the goal is to keep going anyway, and to be honest about where you fall short.
I would not have chosen COVID. If someone had offered me a week of fever and wheezing in exchange for a few new habits, I would have politely declined and picked up a self-help book instead. But I’m not in charge of the curriculum. The illness came, and with it came a window I hadn’t been wise enough to open on my own. I’m grateful for what I saw through it — and hopeful that the changes I made will outlast the memory of how it felt.
Bicycling
In 2024, I bought my first ebike. Before committing, I did a lot of research — but ultimately decided I needed to actually ride one before buying. I have joint problems, so fit wasn’t just a preference; it was a requirement.
I ended up choosing a Pedego. It’s on the pricier side, but it’s genuinely comfortable and suits me well. The staff at my local Pedego dealer were great — they helped me find the right model, the Interceptor, and I’ve been bringing it back to them for annual service ever since.
The weather is finally turning, and I managed to get out for a short ride today. After a sedentary winter, it’s going to take a little time to find my legs again — but it’s a start.
Obsidian
I’m transitioning to Obsidian for most of my writing tasks. It handles a wide range of writing well, and it may be best-in-class when it comes to linking ideas together.
One thing I appreciate is that Obsidian can publish directly to my blog, which means fewer tools to juggle. Notes I write for posts can also double as reference material for future projects — everything lives in one place. And when I need to extend its functionality, there’s a plugin for that. I’m currently using Micro.publish to post to my micro.blog account.
The learning curve is real, but so far it’s been worth it. One thing that gives me peace of mind: all Obsidian files are plain text, so if I ever decide to move on, taking my notes with me will be easy.
Mom and Dad’s Birthdays
My dad’s birthday is on February 1st and my mom’s birthday is on March 1st. We enjoyed celebrating their birthdays again this year (a month apart).
Working and taking classes is challenging. I’m always impressed by non-traditional students who manage to work, raise children, and complete their degrees. Taking classes outside my profession has made me appreciate the work and sacrifices of non-traditional students.
I use both mastodon and micro.blog for personal blogging. I still have not learned to coordinate them both — just dabbling a little with each of them.
If you use both services, how have you coordinated them? Do you find synergy in using them both?
It is a cold and icy day. It is a good day to be indoors.
This is Lux, our 13-year-old beagle-dachshund mix. She is a rescue dog and is a very sweet dog.
Merry Christmas 2025
I am grateful for another Christmas with my family. We enjoyed the Christmas Eve service at Kernersville Wesleyan Church. It was a candlelight service and included Christmas Carols. My parents and Emily went with Julie and me. Julie fixed a wonderful meal for our family on Christmas Day. Here are some pictures of our family.
Mother’s Day 2025
This post is a couple of weeks late. On 5/11/2025, our family celebrated Mother’s Day. We had dinner at Amanda and Will’s home.
Of all the blessings in my life, there is nothing I am more grateful for than my mom, my wife, and my daughters.