Week Forty-two: Kathy Benson

Have you ever had something happen to you that you thought was bad but it turned out to be for the best? When you feel sad, or under a curse Your life is bad, your prospects are worse Your wife is crying, sighing… And your olive tree is dying, Temples are graying, and teeth are … Continue reading →

Week Forty-one: Kathy Benson

  List the five people you’d like to meet and why There are so many people living, deceased and even fictitious who I wish I could meet. Here are five, including a few that I think I will actually get to meet in person someday: Pope Francis I am inspired by the Jesuit priest who … Continue reading →

Week Forty: Kathy Benson

  At your deepest level, what do you most want to know in your lifetime? I want to know what the meaning of life is. I want to know why we are here. I want to know if everything happens for a reason. I want to know if God and Heaven really exist. I want … Continue reading →

Week Thirty-nine: Kathy Benson

How did you learn what it meant to be a man/woman? One of the things that I love about The Today Voice and likewise our editor/prompt writer/muse Peter Combs is how this experience challenges me to explore topics and questions that I might not otherwise write about.  Some weeks I can’t wait to tackle the … Continue reading →

Week Thirty-eight: Kathy Benson

When was the last time you were nervous? Last month I tried out for the Listen to Your Mother (LTYM) Chicago 2013 cast. On the night before my audition I wrote about how I was feeling and some of my past experience with being nervous in a post called On Nerves, Johnny Carson and Self … Continue reading →

Week Thirty-seven: Kathy Benson

What’s the first thing you bought with your own money? I don’t recall exactly what the first thing I bought with my own money was, but I know where a good amount of my allowance and babysitting money went when I was in junior high. I used to love to go to a local record … Continue reading →

Week Thirty-six: Kathy Benson

List five things about your hometown that you wouldn’t trade for the world I was born and raised in Evanston, Illinois. It is the first suburb north of Chicago and borders the “North Shore” of Lake Michigan in our state. Evanston is home to Northwestern University, as well as many other wonderful schools, restaurants, parks, … Continue reading →

Week Thirty-five: Kathy Benson

Who was the first person who died in your life and how did you feel? My friend Rosalinda is the first person I remember dying. We were only ten years old when she passed away. We were not close friends, but our families knew each other from church. Rosalinda, her older sister and I had … Continue reading →

Week Thirty-four: Kathy Benson

At what age did you become an adult? I think I became an adult when I left home to go to college at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign in August 1993. I was eighteen years old at the time and though I still had a lot to learn about life and maturity, it was … Continue reading →

Week Thirty-three: Kathy Benson

What’s the hardest thing you’ve ever done?  Bury one of my children, our daughter Molly, who was born and died on April 17 2008. Molly was buried on Monday, April 21, 2008, in the early afternoon at Holy Seplechure Cemetery, in Alsip, IL (a nearby southwest suburb of Chicago) where Bob’s paternal grandparents and great-grandparents … Continue reading →