A foot of heavy snow fell in mid December. The world grew quiet and, for one night, there were no cars on my road. I stayed close to the woodstove hearth, the domain of the Greek Goddess
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Little David pulled open the door and held up his arms for a hug. Snot dripped from his nose onto his red plaid shirt. He wasn’t sick when I’d left two days ago to give birth in
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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
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Two little girls stand in an open field, close to each other but not touching. I’m the straight-haired girl with glasses, 7 years old, wearing a wool coat with plaid trim. The dark-skinned girl wears overalls with
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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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I lie in the dark in my lover’s arms listening to his slow sleeping breath. I’ve known him just a few months, but he’s the man I want to marry. A streetlight on West Seneca Street beams
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In 2010, eighteen months after my husband died, I longed for relief from constant sorrow, so joined three friends for an adventure to Gasparilla Island, Florida. Instead of sunshine and warmth, we faced unusually cold, cloudy weather,
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“I hear a baby calling,” I said to my husband Vic in 1970. After a day at Big Basin Redwoods State Park, we were driving toward the tiny stucco house we rented near a walnut orchard and
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The sky darkened from dusk to inky blue. Disco the sweet black pup became an exhausted brat jumping on my old dog Willow, biting at the leash when she went out for a last pee, mad with
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My friend Barb Cook shared a video of six squirming black puppies. I watched as a vet checked each one before handing it to an assistant for comfort. I’d wanted a pup for a year, but it’s
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