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A strange aspect of our alternate cancer existence was that, even though Husband and I were together every day, sometimes it felt as if we were each in our own…

Nothing is malarkey. That is what our oncologist – a renowned researcher and tenured Harvard professor – told us when we asked about whether visualization and meditation would aid in…

Grandpa almost died this week due to medical neglect. After two days of diarrhea last week, I had taken Grandpa to the GP who thought he was likely dehydrated and…

What happened to Grandpa in the hospital proves to me yet again the importance of medical advocacy. Good medical advocacy improves odds for a successful medical outcome. Advocacy can take…

“Psychology Today” describes resilience as “that ineffable quality that allows some people to be knocked down by life and come back stronger than ever. Rather than letting failure overcome them…

In his kitchen, until he was unable, Grandpa carved with precision. He would cut each beef tenderloin slice into near equal widths, and the widths were thin, the way I…

Long after Grandpa retired from Northeastern University as a professor in civil engineering, Grandpa wore ties and blazers. Not every day, and all the time, but frequently. To me, this…

It took calling the police before we could get Grandpa into the ambulance. First, he accused his caregiver of trying to kidnap him. To avoid such a fate, he escaped…

Grandpa had a urinary tract infection. For people with advanced dementia, it turns out that such relatively minor ailments can set off paranoid incidents. The good news was that his…

Long ago- to get through Husband’s cancer – I learned not to get lost in the probabilities of possibilities. There was a 30% probability that this next round of chemo…

I have learned to take life day by day. Except when I don’t. Even now, there are days when I wake up so worried that if feels like the worry…

Did you hear the giant sucking sound? That was yet another of my days being sucked down the care-giving drain. My “eeeyuck” that came along with it was me getting…

This morning I woke up panicked. What if five years from now Grandpa’s care needs have only increased? What if the mild depression that comes like weak mist each time…

Someday we will be old. Someday we will require care, too. We can bravely say from the surety of our middle-aged youth that if we ever got like Grandpa, then…

I am very tired. All last night, menopausal hot flashes surged with the fury of Hades –waking me with hot sweat, and then chilling me cold. After a decade of…

Today it took five attempts before they could Grandpa’s catheter past his enlarged prostate. Three people held him down and I tried to keep him calm while he screamed. Husband…

My mom died almost 25 years ago after a six-week battle with metastasized lung cancer. When she had first died, she was in my mind all the time. Either I…

I believe in forgiveness. I believe in the idea that you can’t just judge a person’s action without also understanding the road they have walked to get to where they…

Since I have known him, Grandpa has found the clip, plant, rake, and weed that goes with taming verdant vegetation deeply satisfying. He likes restoring a gentle order to the…

From the time that I first posed the question seriously to myself as an adult, I discovered I wanted many children. Husband teases me that by our second date I…

Grandpa and I had some of our loveliest times in the playground when the children were babies, when swings, slides, sandboxes and feeding ducks were still their most favorite things.…

My dear friend Kim has just died. Kim was once married to my brother, the mother of my niece and nephew. Kim and I met in sixth grade, and she…

Now it is my friend Grace who is gone. Grace and I met soon after I moved to Chicago. Last Christmas, Grace was diagnosed with metastasized stomach cancer, and was…

It is hard for Husband to see his father slowly hollow out, to see his father’s ties to this world growing thinner, more threadbare. It is hard because Husband loves…

Grandpa has been steadily losing weight. Fewer and fewer foods appeal to him, and when we do hit on something he likes that day, Grandpa gets full after just a…

A few days after our talk in the sun, Grandpa got into bed never to get out again. He was weak not just from lack of food, but also from…

I went to Honolulu a day and a half before anyone else arrived, so that I could finalize all the details for Grandpa’s funeral, burial and headstone. I always feel…

Being by the sea in Hawaii has been immensely lovely. Every morning, I am up at sunrise, walking along the beach, taking in the sky’s tableau of light and color.…

The incarnation

Snow days Are favorite days For the hound. On the scent For rabbits In the empty park.

The first grey light penetrated the darkness. I closed my eyes hoping sleep would return, but the sky was blanching quickly. Beside me, Susie murmured, rolled over. Through the half…

Who are the designs for?” I asked Mom. I had found Mom in Garden’s little Monastery. As a surprise, Jay had shipped the Monastery in pieces to Mom from Romania,…

The lights dimmed. The band washed onto the stage. Clapping was silenced before its crescendo by a vocalist with a gravelly, raw voice who sang of pain and work, reality…

Fernando’s voice soared. He had spotted me over the corn. His hand stretched out theatrically, and as his note rose, his bushy black moustache quivered. Maria scowled to chide Fernando’s…

I missed my friend Grace’s Memorial, For my stepmom’s 80th birthday celebration. To honor Grace that day, I hiked at dawn, to be with her, now ethereal, in the changing…

“I am seeing in light,” Giovanni told me unexpectedly, like a confession.   I looked at him, confused.   “I always have, from when I am small.” The back of…

“One day,” my father Jay said, his eyes taking on a faraway look, “I came across this elk.”   I watched Jay’s eyes fill as if he could see the…

I love bark deeply grooved, wizened. And twisting tree trunks That smell of cypress and pine.  

A high-pitched beep signaled, the sound of Susie’s pager. “That’s my photographer Bob. He says there’s action on the street. In fact, I can hear it,” she said, excitement growing in…

In the woods, I sense my elves, Flitting and merry, phantoms in the mist.

The hound rests in my office, Like a slowly shifting sleep sculpture. Making it hard, To get to work.  

Garden’s Colonnade ended at the Maze. When I was little, I was terrified of the Maze, terrified that I would be lost forever inside. To make me less frightened, Mom…

From the rocks’ height, I could see a dusty trail on our drive-way, meaning cars were coming. It occurred to me that they would take John Jay. It occurred to…

Sidewalk grass Lovely in the  lithe light, Playing in the breeze.  

  I saw the eclipse. It was a wonder.