In late October 1959, the illness began as a simple cold and quickly moved to kidney failure. Since Dad was sick for twelve of my fourteen years, I was used to this. His doctors often predicted the
Read more →Bereavement and End of Life
In March 2012, a friend sent a link to a Huffington Post article: Dalai Lama Wins Templeton Prize For Work On Science, Religion. I flashed back to forgotten details of the weeks around my husband Vic’s death
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In 2007, a month after Vic’s stem cell transplant, he drives our Subaru west on the New York State Thruway. I’m in the passenger seat, watching his jaw muscle pop. “Let’s make a list,” I suggest. “I
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June 3, 2012 was the fourth anniversary of my husband’s death. I put aside time that day to mourn for Vic and our lost future while honoring the gifts of our marriage and my emerging life. My
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In 1998, a staff member at the senile dementia home in Rochester found Mom passed out on the bathroom floor, bleeding internally, moving gently toward death. Mom’s husband Herlie wasn’t ready to let go, so he rescinded
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She looks up at me with sorrowful shame-filled eyes. I’m sorry, her eyes say. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. “Oh Daisy-Girl, it’s OK,” I croon. Her eyes squint with worry. She has squirmed herself off her towel-covered
Read more →It’s hard to distinguish between grief and depression. When does one slide into the other? Who gets to choose the labels anyway? A New York Times article from January 25, 2012 explored diagnostic labels for mental illness.
Read more →Not long before midnight, I put on my miner’s lamp and tour the yard like a one-eyed Cyclops. It’s March 19, 2012, usually a time for snow on my hill in the Finger Lakes of New York,
Read more →The year following my husband Vic’s death, his absence stunned me as I walked by his orderly shelves of books or smelled the acrid scent of firewood he had cut. I woke up and went to sleep
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