It’s a curious story, this drama unfolding in the lives of two women, each one an unlikely choice to participate in the gate-crashing of the universe. God chose women  and wombs  to house men. And what men! One, the messenger and harbinger of the promised King; the other, the King Himself. And what wombs! One, unused, a house grown old, the paint peeling, shutters dangling on their hinges, no fit place for a child. Elizabeth had long ago given up any thought of a child playing there.   The...

Her wild streak had diminished. And then it faded completely. We came back from a six-week-long trip to find that she was off her feed, even though she was cared for daily in our absence. Her dry food no longer appealed to her, so we opened a can. She licked the juices but wouldn’t eat. I took her water bowl to wherever I found her lying, on the deck or in a flower bed. Then, she even stopped drinking. Now, she wanted to be petted. Being a feral cat, we knew she knew how to die. Instinct...

The gondola ride up a 6,000-foot Austrian mountain this past August with my son, his wife, and our three-year-old granddaughter triggered...