Sometimes loss and death give little or no warning of their arrival. The doorbell rings at two in the morning, and we open the door to find a policeman waiting to say, “Sir, I’ve got some bad news.” We arrive home from a normal day at work and find our beloved spouse lying on the floor, fallen with a brain aneurysm. We go to a hospital expecting to bring home a healthy baby and instead find ourselves arranging a funeral. We go into work to a job we love and find ourselves leaving an hour later under guard and with a pink slip in our pocket. We find our beloved in the arms of another and wonder what the hell happened.

For a week I’ve been thinking about what to write in this week’s column, and very little clarity came until today. Traditionally, I love writing about anything. A new business in town, my son’s homemade Halloween costume, a great book I’m reading, the crispness of orchard apples, an upcoming trip.

There are only a handful of life experiences that result in a definitive before and after. I now know that losing a parent is one of those. 

My mom passed away on Sunday, Aug. 14, after a three-year battle with cancer. While she had been sick a long time, her death was unexpected and sudden. The week before she passed, she took my two little boys to the North Carolina Zoo. We knew she was getting worse, but she was fighting and still responding to some of her treatments. We thought she had much more time left in her. 

A life-saving antidote to reverse drug overdoses is finding widespread acceptance amid the prescription pain pill epidemic.

It snuck up on me.

I stepped out of the airport and into the afternoon sunshine.

Tony Lossiah was a good man, a quiet guy with a caring heart. He loved his family and worked hard on the job, say the friends and family still mourning his loss in the tightknit Cherokee community. 

No charges will be filed following suicides at the Jackson County Detention Center in November 2014 and March 2015, District Attorney Ashley Welch announced last week.

The alarm went off on my phone. Monday morning. 6:45 a.m.

Rescue crews recovered the body of Sean Kasey around 1:30 p.m. Sunday from the Cullasaja River after conducting a search for nearly 24 hours.