Lat fall, when I planted some 250 tulip bulbs in my front yard, I could barely handle the fact that I would have to wait until the spring to see them come up.

My parents worried my brother was gay, based on his self-created origin story he “floated down on a pink cloud.” A frequent reader of my brother’s diary when we were growing up, I knew he wasn’t gay.

One of the things that holds us back the most is our fear that we might offend. This is a rerun of a column I wrote in July 2023 for The Bollard.

Bravery: We can face this thing like the existential threat that it is.

JJ was holed up in their room all weekend . . .