Me and David on his birthday in 1977 or 1978, I think... Every year on this day, I celebrate the fact my big brother was born. And I mourn the fact that he isn't growing any older, since he died almost 15 years ago. Today, David would have turned 62. Sixty-two! An age that, when... Continue Reading →
Blog
Congratulations! I’m sorry.
Sometimes it feels like everything that ever happened to me has compounded. As if the addition of all my life's wins and losses doesn't balance out; instead, it is more than its sum. And that this journey is one gigantic emotional roller coaster of highs and low. Grief can loom larger, and more dramatically. There... Continue Reading →
The Trouble with Memories
You know it’s been a long time when you think it is the 15th anniversary of a death and then realize, counting backwards, that it's actually the 14th, and your brain has done bad math again. It might as well be the 100th, it feels so long. Or the first, all over again, because there's... Continue Reading →
Dog Person
“It's hard to imagine Anne without Trixie,” my friend Karen said on Friday when I had to say goodbye to my beloved 15-year-old dog. It's hard for me to imagine me without Trixie either, because we were so connected, nearly inseparable, for the past 14 years. I feel a kind of naked I've never known... Continue Reading →
Subject to Change
“The only thing that is constant is change,” wrote the ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus. This is true, yet often hard to accept. Seasons are one thing — the trees budding out or covered in snow; those things are predictable, at least, and cyclical. The unpredictable, non-cyclical events are hard to plan around. And hard to... Continue Reading →