I dream I’m searching for healthy food in a large cafeteria, but can’t find nutritious food or even green tea and feel confused and lost. I turn around and my dead husband Vic stands facing me, masked
Read more →Bereavement and End of Life
“I’ll stay until the end,” Lauren said. We knew what “the end” meant, but didn’t know when it would come. Doctors said any minute, but my husband hung on. Vic had gone downhill quickly, so our sons
Read more →“I love you, David,” I say when my North Carolina son arrives on Thursday night. Because of the pandemic, I haven’t seen him for 8 months, so I wrap my arms around him and press my cheek
Read more →When our son David and I arrived at the hospital room that morning in 2008, Vic sat upright, his bare legs hanging over the side of the bed. He looked exhausted and uncomfortable, but it was the
Read more →“I can’t stop,” I said, choking out the words between my tears. “I just can’t…” Erotic attraction had been a big part of our lives since we met the year before at the beginning of my senior
Read more →“You’ll figure it out,” Vic said, gently pulling me into a long hug. He wasn’t interested in making decisions about my life after his death. He trusted me and had no interest in planning his funeral or
Read more →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 →July 12, 1967 Dear Esel, After your bus left, I couldn’t face the apartment, so went to the cycle shop. Maybe mindless people could make me forget. No hope. I finally got the strength to sulk back
Read more →I walk to my husband Vic’s cairn in the forest to honor his life and death. Along the way, I peek in the nesting boxes to see if the bluebird eggs have hatched. I pick lupines near
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
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