Posts exploring death, dying, loss and how we experience grief
Washington state is well known for what the British call “brighter, showery weather.” The Brits ought to know. Their coasts and rolling countryside are a constant parade of weather patterns. I believe the phrase is meant to convey (BBC Shipping Forecast, correct me): this long, depressing period of overcast downpours …
I have already written a bit about the effect of the coronavirus pandemic on ordinary life, or at least my very ordinary life. For the most part, I’ve found it relatively easy to be insular, isolated. I no longer have Tim’s life to worry about during the pandemic. Instead, I …
I would have you know I did not overstock my pantry with dried beans, and am not hoarding loo roll. But the news that people working in America’s meat processing plants were falling sick with coronavirus, and that their bosses were finally closing the plants so sick people could stay …
The world today is a whirlwind of delusional bleach remedies (some, alas, touted by the White House), grieving families separated from each other’s hugs by mandated safe distances, and increasingly ominous clinical reports from those on the medical front lines. To say nothing of tornadoes sweeping America’s heartland, while the …
I meant to write a cheerful post tonight. After all, the skies were blue and sunny today; the air temperature mild; the cats mellow. Work went well. Happy things happened yesterday. I went for a walk today, listening to instrumental music as slow yet rhythmical as a healthy heartbeat. When …
Since losing Timothy on the autumnal equinox of 2018, my seasonal calendar has hinged on two events loosely fixed to his passing. In November, I go to White Eagle Natural Burial Ground for its All Souls Day honoring of time’s passage. On that day, we who have our dear ones …
Bela Fleck and the Flecktones notwithstanding, Timothy was no particular fan of the banjo’s intrusion into jazz. In his view, it was best relegated to jazz’s Cajun cousin, zydeco — which he quite liked, make no mistake. It had (in his view) no place in New Orleans’ jazz palaces like …
I was just telling you a bit about the delightful Milo in The Phantom Tollbooth. He receives a purple tollbooth, some coins to pay tolls with, and a map of the places served by this particular tollbooth. He immediately observes they aren’t anywhere served by the Jersey Turnpike… (Well, I …
When I was a mere slip of a bookwright — a veritable inchbookworm — I stumbled upon several books that rang out to me like bells across a silent snowfield. And, strangely, usually, shortly after I absorbed them, they vanished. Not because I personally lost them: Never! Books which belonged …
It is a difficult enough thing to do, to go through one’s beloved’s belongings after they die. Clothes that still smell faintly of their cologne (patchouli, in Timothy’s case). Diaries with memos about dates you shared, appointments you didn’t, gifts given to you for anniversaries or birthdays. Items you know …
