My TEDx talk has over 50,000 viewers. The numbers keep growing. I’m glad it continues to help people who grieve. My husband Vic and I met fifty years ago this week. My love keeps growing, too. In
Read more →Family and Friends
I sobbed myself to sleep the night after my brother Jim’s memorial service. The huge gathering went smoothly, including my reading, but something gnawed inside. In the middle of the night, I woke up with a knot in
Read more →When the Dalai Lama visited the United States for the first time in October 1979, he spent four days at Wisdom’s Goldenrod, a philosophy and meditation center near Seneca Lake in New York. Sidney Piburn, a friend and
Read more →“I’m calling from Dana Farber,” a hushed male voice said on the phone. Oh no. It’s my brother. “Why are you at Dana Farber?” I asked in a quiet measured tone. Dana Farber Cancer Institute was where he
Read more →“In Minoan Crete, the Goddess and her Priestesses, dressed as bees, are shown dancing together on a golden seal found buried with the dead. …the bee signified the life that comes from death…. “Bee Goddess,” Temple of
Read more →“I don’t see honeybees in the Shirley Poppies this year,” I said to my son David last summer. “Bees usually love them.” “Now that you mention it, I don’t have honeybees in my garden either,” he said. “I see
Read more →The half-life of love is forever. ~Junot Diaz, This Is How You Lose Her Eight years after my husband’s death, I carry our love in my heart pocket. I’m used to the ache. Longing doesn’t surprise me. I don’t
Read more →Six weeks after my husband’s stem cell transplant in 2007, he drove our Subaru west on the New York State Thruway. A stocking cap covered his hairless head. I sat in the passenger seat. His jaw muscles popped
Read more →After nearly three years of cancer therapy, my brother’s body was exhausted. There were no more options. Jim was dying. The previous week, I spent four days with him in his hospital room. We were often alone then. When
Read more →My brother’s cell phone sings its song. He slowly picks it up from the tray table and leans back into white pillows with closed eyes. He seemed close to death a few days ago, although he’s stable
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