Self Care

On love, loss, and the permission we never got to feel it STEVE WALKER APR 27, 2026 I was twelve years old when the phone rang just before Christmas, 1975. My dad was on his way back from a business trip. I don’t know how I knew, but I knew. Grampy was dead. My grandfather had been my best friend in a childhood full of loneliness and moving around. He took me fishing. He took me to my first Red Sox game. He was larger than life to the whole family — funny as hell, the kind of

April 6, 2026 In June of 2018, I told my superintendent that if I could retire, I would. I loved my job — teaching, running an innovative lab school — but I had reluctantly taken on the role of director while still teaching, and it had beaten me down. The arthritis in my hip had become excruciating, and on top of the job fatigue, had left me empty. Nothing left in the tank. That August, I was supposed to visit friends in Thailand and do some solo traveling there and in Malays