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 →
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 →
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 →
Today marks my big brother David's 60th birthday. I doubt he ever imagined himself at 60, so youthful was his entire sense of being, but I do. I try to picture him every year on March 13, marking the march of time, celebrating that he was born, guessing at how he'd look each year, and... Continue Reading →
How appropriate that the cat would die on New Year's Day after a year like we had, disabusing me of the notion that the flip of a calendar page would somehow wipe clean the disaster of 2020. Jasper did himself and us the great favor of dying with relative ease and seeming peace at the... Continue Reading →
In my last post, I reflected on how my deceased brother continues to inspire me to get outside and to exercise — for my health, nerves, sanity. He also inspires my outrage. His step-mother (we have different dads) rightly pointed out that during this pandemic, David — in addition to fueling and calming himself with... Continue Reading →
[Not quite the same ring as Stevie Nicks’s “On the Edge of 17”...?] I'm in a brief liminal state between 46 and 47 years old right this minute; my birthday is tomorrow. When I was born in June of 1973, my big brother David was already 12. Numbers. Ages. They're hard facts, and should seem... Continue Reading →
True Scrawl 