A Springtime Wave of Nostalgia — It’s been half a year since my husband died. Six intense months during which I was filled with an eerie energy that propelled me into simultaneously grieving the immensity of the loss and throwing myself resolutely into the next chapter of my life. It was also a time during which…

I love turning ordinary activities into magic adventures. Life is too short to waste on tedium. So here are two versions of what happened to me last week. VERSION # 1 — The boring drag it might have been I had to get up while it was still dark and…

A Valentine’s Day Story of Remembrance — Over our 34 years together, we never formally celebrated Valentine’s day. It seemed like a trite and manufactured Hallmark event — with the obligatory sentimental cards, the ingestion of sugary chocolate confections, the crowded lines at restaurants, the little red hearts everywhere. “Every day is Valentine’s Day!” you used to…

Dear Raphael — Today, December 10, 2021, would have been your 83rd birthday. You didn’t make it. Three months ago, after a few days in which the pain, the debility and the morphine threw you into terrifying anguish, you ceased being your normal self, and you fell into a deep…

Sometimes, a single phrase can capture something essential about a person. ON THE FOURTH OF JULY, 2022, waiting for the cold morning fog of the San Francisco Bay Area to lift before heading off to my favorite nearby community picnic, I doodled around on my late husband’s computer, seeing what…

Why Hold on to Them? — A joke among Irish Americans I recently read: “What is Irish Alzheimer’s?” Answer: “It’s where you forget everything except the grudges!” Of course this isn’t unique to people of Irish descent. The practice of feeling aggrieved and holding onto grudges seems to be pretty widespread among humans in general. There…

What does washing the windows of your car reveal about your character? Quite a bit, I think! My father was a child of the Great Depression. He never owned much, but each of his possessions was carefully tended, and made to last as long as possible. This was especially true…

One year ago yesterday, my brother died of COVID. He was alone in an overcrowded rural hospital in the highlands of Guatemala. From the start of his hospitalization, all of us here in the U.S. …

A Short Photo Essay from Oakland, California — There’s something about the campuses of old liberal arts colleges in the United States that tugs at the heartstrings. Gracious 19th-century buildings on beautiful landscaped grounds, a sense of history and continuity. Life of…