Opinion

After my dog Percy died earlier this year, the house turned quiet in a way that settled deep. Food bowls stayed lined against the wall, still clean, the couch cushion he claimed kept its dip for months and silence filled every corner once full of sound and movement.

Parenting doesn’t always break your heart in loud or dramatic ways. Most of the time, it’s quieter. It happens when the house is still, the workday feels endless and you suddenly realize your child has been waiting for you to notice the time slipping by. It’s the kind of heartbreak that doesn’t come from a single moment but from the slow awareness that love, no matter how strong, sometimes gets buried beneath responsibility. The other night, my daughter Aurora told me she feels like I am always working. She said when we go somewhere, it’s usually an event for my job, and that even when we’re home, I’m on my computer late into the night. Her voice wasn’t angry, just honest. To her, work had become the quiet wall between us.

Kratom is taking lives Editor’s note: If you or someone you know is struggling with kratom use or addiction, contact Tri-County Mental Health Services at 816-468-0400 or visit 988lifeline.org. Additional local resources include Compass Health Network and Burrell Behavioral Health, which provide confidential counseling and recovery support across Missouri.

We like to tell ourselves that the mind is stronger than the body. If you push hard enough, if you grit your teeth long enough, if you simply “think positive,” then you can overcome whatever pain or sickness you’re dealing with. That’s the promise in the old saying, “mind over matter.” It sounds powerful, even magical and sometimes, when you’re facing a small challenge, it works.

Spartan Families, I want to start by saying thank you. Thank you for entrusting Richmond High School with the responsibility of helping your student achieve success. Our goal is to see each of the students in our care graduate and find a career that both supports them and they enjoy doing. We take this mission seriously and I felt it appropriate to communicate those efforts and actions that we have taken in the past few years to serve our families in the best way possible.

Silence doesn’t mean distance Explaining the struggle with small talk in today’s world often feels impossible. Not the in-person kind where conversations flow naturally, but the digital version – the text messages that demand constant replies, the phone calls that expect immediate answers, the never-ending cycle of photos on Snapchat.

Rock music is the best genre there is. That’s not up for debate. The raw emotion, the range of sound and the way it carries people through life set it apart from anything else. From childhood road trips to wrestling shows to late-night drives on quiet backroads, rock has been the constant.