Opinions

DEAR ABBY: My 19-year-old niece didn’t finish high school and has been in and out of rehab for years. She’s about to leave a residential program and is looking for a place to live. Her parents have implemented “house rules” she doesn’t like, notably staying drug-free and away from her boyfriend.

DEAR ABBY: I recently bought a first-floor condo because I am an older woman with a knee disability. Otherwise, I would have purchased a unit on the second floor of this two-story condo complex. I am only here part time because my husband is not ready for retirement.

DEAR ABBY: My husband of 4 1/2 years had an old girlfriend he was on and off with for 15 years. She passed away while he was in prison. We got married three months after he was released. The thing is, when he sleeps, almost every night, he says her name and how much he loves her.

DEAR ABBY: I have a 54-year-old profoundly disabled, non-verbal child who is in a group home. I have been advocating for her since birth, when we learned she had suffered severe brain damage. The umbilical cord was wrapped around her neck for so long that the damage was irreparable.

DEAR ABBY: I’m getting married soon and I am very excited. It is a true blessing. I love my fiancee very much, and I’m happy to spend the rest of my life with her. I have one concern, though, and it is about her daughters. They are great girls. Both are teenagers.

Today’s news reveal all the upheaval in war-torn countries with poverty and hunger, spread of diseases and destruction of homes and cities. Then people in our free country stay on negative terms about living here.

You received the phone call that buckles your knees. Or hear the police officer’s knock on the door. Or the doctor solemnly walks toward you in the hospital waiting room. And now you have just heard the worst news of your life. You’ve lost the most important person in your world.

Last time, we began to unpack Friedrich Nietzsche’s “God is dead” philosophy by looking at his assertion that there is no objective (absolute) truth or moral values, and that could only happen with the death of God and the abandonment of Christian values. But there is more to the story than that.

DEAR ABBY: I often see ads about stopping smoking. I’d like to share my story of success in overcoming this filthy habit in the hope that it may help someone else. I smoked four packs of non-filtered cigarettes every day. At the age of 37, I knew I wanted to quit.

DEAR ABBY: My brother has ALS and lives in another state. He has a wife and children. His wife has decided that when family visits from out of state, they need to stay in a hotel instead of their house because she does not have the capacity to host.