“Who do you want to see more than anyone?” my husband Vic asked in an excited voice. It was unusual for him to call from his office in the middle of a work day. “I don’t know,”
Read more →Family and Friends
It was easy to feel gratitude for our close marriage when my husband Vic was alive. Whether we were in a chemotherapy treatment room, in the stem cell transplant unit, or struggling with illness at home, we
Read more →I lie next to my 84 year old mother, my strong sun-browned body facing her frail white one. She takes up so little space now. When I am with her, I am usually the mother, holding and
Read more →On frigid winter mornings, I am a devotee of Hestia, Greek Goddess of the Hearth. I descend the wooden steps from my bedroom, shoulders shrugged against the cold, put my dog Willow outside in the shivering dawn,
Read more →We faced off in the upstairs bedroom, sitting on a mattress on the floor in our rented house on Cayuga Lake. We’d been married less than a year. The afternoon light was low and the bedroom window
Read more →In February, prednisone gave Vic a prolonged energy surge. He longed to be alone and taste independence, and I wanted to think about something besides the timing of medicine and doctor’s appointments. Barbara Nowogrodzki, an artist, teacher,
Read more →In 1994, my husband Vic received another rejection letter for his book Synchronicity, Science, and Soulmaking. He added the latest rebuff to a small stack of rejections sitting under the feet of a jade elephant statue on
Read more →Peter’s red pick-up is parked in the road when I get home just before dark. Peter often brings his dog Simo to my land for a run, but Peter’s long dark silhouette stands alone against the snow.
Read more →The house is quiet this Christmas morning. A coat of fresh snow decorates the hushed earth. Yesterday, my son David, his fiancé Liz, and their three dogs left for their home in North Carolina. This morning, my
Read more →On the shortest day of 2009 when my sons were home for the holidays, I took a clipper and cloth bag on my morning forest walk and gathered evergreen boughs and pinecones. I picked up small chunks
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