Tallahassee Journal by Margaret E. McColley

    [Photo: Fluffernutter, who gives me "sense of home."] #Grief#Voice#Friendship#ReflectingonInteriorSenseofHome#BookComing      I attended an online offering by the author David Kessler this week. He spoke beautifully about what our culture needs when it comes to grief and bereavement. One of the lines I jotted down in my notes was, “we can’t heal what we don’t feel.” And I thought of my friend J. She had called me spontaneously the day before to share her sorrow at the loss of my parents — of her parents — it was the same loss for each of us I felt when we connected through the phone speakers. I had started to talk about why I hadn’t called in a long while and she had answered through tears:  Oh,that is not what I am thinking about at all .  I am so sorry you lost your parents, and I am so sorry I lost my parents.” And in that expression of feeling I heard a familiar and tender timbre that I hadn’t heard for a long time, and I felt a sense of home w...

       Robert McNair McColley, Professor Emeritus of History at the University of Illinois, passed away peacefully at his home in Urbana on the winter solstice, December 21st, 2025, with family at his side. Bob was born on February 2, 1933 in Salina, Kansas, the son of William Grant McColley and Alice McNair McColley. Grant McColley was an itinerant academic with a PhD from Northwestern University. He moved his family around the country, working various jobs during the Great Depression. Consequently, Bob spent his childhood in towns associated with Kansas Wesleyan University (Salina), Smith College (Northampton MA), Western Carolina Teachers College (Cullohwee NC), and Illinois Institute of Technology (Chicago). The family finally settled in Washington DC, where Alice became a CIA analyst.                         Bob, front and center, with (from the left) Margaret&cat, Grant, and Carolyn Alic...