Donna Vickroy – Page 13

When you share a birthday with the city of your birth, it's hard not to want to sing its praises while making comparisons to its continued growth and your slow demise.

Vickroy: When you share a birthday with a major metropolitan city, an ode seems in order

February 27, 2024 at 9:25 a.m.

Halloo, hallay, from the Bean to Union Station, here comes a day, or citywide celebration. On this March 4, by proclamation of the mayor; Chicago adds a year, while I...

Midwest Animal Hospital employees carry animals to safety following a Jan. 17 fire at the People’s Animal Welfare Society (PAWS) shelter in Tinley Park. (Midwest Animal Hospital)

Vickroy: It took a community to save animals from a burning shelter: ‘You want others to learn from it’

February 23, 2024 at 5:48 p.m.

The 100 dogs and cats at People’s Animal Welfare Society were no strangers to trauma. Most were at the PAWS shelter because of human failure. They’d been relinquished, returned or...

Death, especially when it involves a close friend or relative, can make you want to withdraw from the world and wallow in your pain. That's where the kindness of friends -- and strangers -- can help, columnist Donna Vickroy says.

Vickroy: Even in the darkest of times, as you learn to live with grief, the light will find you

February 16, 2024 at 1:47 p.m.

I was still grieving the death of my father when my sister succumbed to cancer on a bitter cold day in January. On the eve of her passing, we wrapped...

Vickroy: Hard as it might seem, planning ahead for death can alleviate a lot of end-of-life suffering

February 9, 2024 at 12:44 p.m.

Hard as it might seem, planning ahead for death can alleviate a lot of end-of-life suffering, experts say.

A Joliet Police Department evidence unit officer walks back to a Joliet house where five of eight people fatally shot by Romeo Nance on Jan. 21 were found.

Vickroy: In wake of suburbia’s Bloody Sunday family murders, a reminder to those living in fear: help is available

February 5, 2024 at 10:28 a.m.

Domestic violence experts want people to know they don't have to wait till the worst occurs — as was the case in two family shootings on the same day in...

Karen Wick, a Naperville resident and health coach/fitness expert at the Endeavor Health Fitness Center in Woodridge, practices what she preaches by following the principles of Blue Zone lifestyle.

Vickroy: Health coach offers ways to incorporate life-enriching Blue Zone habits into your lifestyle

January 23, 2024 at 12:08 p.m.

The Blue Zone lifestyle isn't a new discovery. But the diet, which is embraced by the world's longest-lived people, is enjoying renewed interest in America for several reasons. For one,...

When all you can do for someone at the end is be there for them, it's not always easy or pleasant or fun but do it anyway, columnist Donna Vickroy says.

Vickroy: When there’s nothing you can do for a fading loved one, do the most important thing — be there

January 16, 2024 at 8:21 a.m.

I was summoning all my strength to get a man twice my weight into the car. I helped him out of the wheelchair, turned him sideways, ducked his head, and...

Travel is always an adventure -- sometimes good, sometimes bad, always worthwhile -- when you're meeting new people, trying new foods and learning to navigate a new place, columnist Donna Vickroy says.

Vickroy: Travel may test you, stretch you, even scare you — but nothing beats an adventure to a foreign place

January 8, 2024 at 3:06 p.m.

The start of a new year hits us like a blank page. How will we fill it? For many, especially those of us of a certain age, travel is on...

Columnist Donna Vickroy and her sister, Terese Langdon. It's impossible to look forward to a new year knowing it's the one in which you will lose your sister to cancer, Vickroy says.

Vickroy: How do I celebrate the new year when I know what’s coming promises sorrow?

December 26, 2023 at 7:32 a.m.

For the first time, I am not looking forward to the new year. I should, given how godawful 2023 has been. But I already know 2024 will bring even more...

Not everyone sees the holidays as the happiest time of the year for myriad reasons. Simple advice from children can help get you out of the doldrums because this too will pass, they say.

Vickroy: Need a cup of good cheer this Christmas? Children’s words of kindness might help

December 18, 2023 at 2:14 p.m.

The holidays can be rough for people who are ill or struggling. The cold, the darkness. Sometimes our sadness seems overwhelming. But wise words from young people can have an...

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