Don’t get pregnant and get good grades. When I was in high school, these rules were unspoken, but I knew what mattered to Mom. After Dad died when I was fourteen, Mom worried about restarting her own
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Jill Swenson of Swenson Book Development interviewed me about my use of social media to build an author’s platform. Here are her words followed by the interview. “Elaine Mansfield is a writer, blogger, and bereavement group facilitator
Read more →“Congratulations,” Mark said as I packed up my food in the American Cancer Society Hope Lodge kitchen. Mark was the caretaker of the hospitality house where I stayed while Vic had a stem cell transplant at Strong
Read more →This body likes hiking boots and jeans. It digs deep wide holes for plants and spades out dandelion roots. It likes broad brimmed hats and Vic’s old broadcloth shirts instead of sunscreen. In winter, it pulls on
Read more →“Do something you used to love, even if you don’t care about it right now,” my son David advised the spring after his dad died. “Then something you always loved will be waiting for you.” Gardening has
Read more →“Come on, Elaine, let’s dress up in our Hector regional costumes and take a photo for the party invitation.” “I have gardening to do, Vic. Let’s do it tomorrow.” “No, today,” Vic insisted. “It’s a perfect day.
Read more →“Write a list of questions,” Ellen instructed. “Anything that comes to mind. Just let your pen flow across the page.” I sat around Ellen’s cozy table with a small group of students and began. “Will I ever
Read more →Vic and I were in Palo Alto at the Free University Psychodrama Commune where residents were free to express every feeling and do what they wanted as long as they told the truth about it. Robb Crist
Read more →I arranged glass canning jars on the wooden shelves in the cellar to please my eye—apricots between red cherries and crimson tomatoes, purple red plums next to pink tinged peaches. A rainbow of jams filled the higher
Read more →A friend told us to gather near a small gray door in the back of the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium before 7 a.m. After a guard turned the lock, we filed into an empty auditorium and sat
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