In July 1972, they moved with their baby boy to a crumbling farmhouse on a dirt road and immediately got to work. She cleared cobwebs in the cellar while he made shelves from old barn boards. Like
Read more →Posts Tagged Vic Mansfield
It’s morning. I walk downstairs and find a note taped on the glass door leading to the back porch. It’s a rectangle of construction paper, dull, dusty black. The note says “Elaine” in silver ink in my
Read more →Rushing toward Strong Hospital in 2008, I call the pulmonologist, the oncologist, the cardiologist, and our family doctor. “Should we put your husband on a ventilator?” they ask me. “Can you give him chemo after he nearly
Read more →“I’m afraid to die,” Vic said. His raspy voice was soaked with despair. I rubbed his tight shoulders while he leaned into me, his head resting against my heart. “I meditated and studied with wise teachers for
Read more →October 1994 Dearest E, While walking up the stairs tonight I was forcefully struck by what a precious gift
Read more →“This much I know. Everything leads to You.” Deborah Gregory, “In Full Flower” from A Liberated Sheep in a Post Shepherd World *** You were in my dream last night, healthy, waving from across the room. I
Read more →My TEDx talk has over 50,000 viewers. The numbers keep growing. I’m glad it continues to help people who grieve. My husband Vic and I met fifty years ago this week. My love keeps growing, too. In
Read more →The great secret of death, and perhaps its deeper connection with us, is this: that in taking from us a being we have loved and venerated, death does not wound us without at the same time, lifting
Read more →“We’ll sit here in the afternoon sun when we’re old and too tired to walk,” Vic said when we designed a deck with a two-person bench shielded from the wind. “We’ll watch sunsets here.” He dubbed it
Read more →Vic and I waited in a quiet room in our friend Steve’s house while the sound engineer set up his recording equipment. Vic wore thick layers of bulky clothing over his cancer swollen body. Four months before, after a severe drug reaction, he’d
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