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 →
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 →
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 →
“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 →
“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 →
Wow, what a time to be alive, and afraid, and also so clear. The pandemic has made all of us reevaluate what matters to us, and what we really can't do without. I can't do without my friends. I wouldn't be able to survive this seemingly endless pandemic halfway sane without them. Jena, Karen, and... Continue Reading →
It's just past Halloween, and we've finished All Souls Day on the Christian calendar, a time to commemorate our departed ones. Now Mexico is in the midst of Day of the Dead celebrations, one of two — or more — days for remembering and mourning those we loved and lost. I am so grateful for... Continue Reading →
It's the eve of my forty-eighth birthday. This is the last day I'll be the same age my big brother David was when he died — and, tomorrow, I'll be older than he ever got to be. When your sibling is already 12 at the time of your birth, and you are forever looking up,... Continue Reading →
I am going through my books. A lifetime of books, I want to say, although this is not quite true. My adult books, I guess — though that sounds like something it's not! — largely from college and beyond, though there are a few childhood ones that have traveled all the way to my grown-up... Continue Reading →
While watching TV, my phone beside me buzzed. A quick glance showed an unknown number from Washington State, so I tapped the red decline button, thinking ‘telemarketer, spam, someone selling something.’ A few minutes later, I received a text message from the same number: Please call me about Gregory's starfish. I was about to text... Continue Reading →
True Scrawl 