464 “I probably won’t go to the award ceremony,” I said to my brother Jim when I told him Leaning into Love won the Gold Medal IPPY (Independent Publisher Book Awards) for Aging/Death & Dying. The IPPY is considered one
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139 We met at the beginning of my senior year in 1966. I was a government major at Cornell focusing on South East Asia and China. The more war protests Vic and I attended and the more sunsets
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236 My husband Vic died in early June 2008. Even though my heart ached, I was grateful for long days and spring green. Nature made it clear there was more than death to consider. There was wild
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165 Hill Haven Skilled Nursing, 1999 My healthy sun-browned body lies in a hospital bed with railings. My pale mother lies facing me. I often feel like her mother now, holding and caressing her like a sick child. Mom and I became comfortable
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1106 I’m in a small country church. Someone turns off the electric lights. The full moon illuminates the chapel with soft apricot-toned light. Then they open a window to let night air in. I feel lonely for
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52 Vic got serious about photography in 1990 after a borrowed camera malfunctioned and there were no photos of our first trip to India. In his usual style, my husband turned aggravation into action. He bought a high quality
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74 We ate dinner at the antique oak table. Vic’s stepfather had given it to us when we bought our home in 1972. We each had our place—me closest to the kitchen, David to my left, Anthony across the table, and
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143 Where is my Victor?” my mother-in-law asks. “He died, Virginia,” I tell her quietly. Her face scrunches into a grimace. She throws her head back to the right as if to shake something off. An insect?
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151 “I have to lie down right now,” I tell my daughter-in-law Liz as I stretch out on the floor near the wood stove. Who is this woman who has to lie down in the middle of making
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199 A small group sat around a table in the Watkins Glen Public Library. They’d come to hear me read from Leaning into Love. I told stories and read for forty minutes and then turned it over to anyone
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