When I was in college, I spent five months studying in Galway, Ireland. While there, I met a red-headed Irish lad named Shane Mulligan. He had a thick brogue, a warm smile, and he was as kind as they come. The summer after my stint abroad, Shane came to New York to visit. He wanted to see the states, and I was happy to return the favor of showing him around my homeland as he'd shown me around his. During his stay, my parents organized a family dinner with all eight of us in attendance. As we talked loudly over one another, passed around bread and doled out heaping servings, Shane sat quietly near the end of the table just looking around at all the happy chaos. My mother, concerned he may be feeling homesick, leaned into him and asked how he was doing.

"Do you feel that?" he said. "Feel what?" my mom replied and looked around to meet the places were his slow moving gaze fell. "The glow," he replied and smiled. "Feel the glow."

My mom now regularly recalls that moment and when she does, she tells the story with a sparkle in her eye. She'd raised four kids, run an in-home daycare that brought countless children through her door each day. She worked a few other side jobs, led a Girl Scout troop, volunteered for every single event at school, carpooled us to sporting events and friends' houses and birthday parties and part-time jobs...she'd spent a lifetime moving quickly from one moment to the next, loving motherhood, but never quite having enough time to sit back, quiet her busy hands, look up. Feel. the. glow.

So much has changed since that day in our old house on Ridge Road. My parents moved out. My precious dad passed away. My siblings and I all have families of our own and when we're all together, which is rare, we're eighteen strong. Time pushes us all along, but it can never erase the glow that radiated among us in that moment. It lives forever where it exists...

...and when I think of it, I smile and remind myself to soak up the moment. Take it all in. Life is short, oh gosh is it short, and nothing on earth is more precious than the people who make us glow.

It is this concept that stands as the muse for my "Glow Sessions".