I was thinking today about my family — the ones who are gone. My father (who died from congestive heart failure), my mother (who died indirectly from liver and congestive heart failure) and my brother (who died from pancreatic and hepatic cancer). By the ends of their lives, they were all broken in some way. [...]
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Today is Father’s Day. With all the talk about dads in the media, esp. commercials and advertising trying to get one to BUY BUY BUY something ANYTHING for Dear Old Dad, I have been rattling around in my mind about my own dad who has indeed departed this mortal coil. The pangs of sadness don’t [...]
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I had the good fortune to spend time in the bosom of a friend and her family last week. And so many things transpired, at a subterranean level, deep inside my cold black heart, which meant so much to me. Without embarrassing her over much, I’ll just say that the hum of family life was [...]
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Some of us, I guess, require a lot more than a simple list or a decision to make a committment to change. We feed off of the collective energy put into New Year’s Eve. It is an impressive display, isn’t it, creating a lot of momentum for whatever project is at hand. But what if [...]
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Instead of resolutions this year, I believe I will ponder this three-word rubric that I used when I taught writing. It’s quite simple: what are you going to START doing, what are you going to STOP doing, and what are you going to KEEP doing in 2009? One new start is an e-book I hope [...]
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I am behind in my Holidailies posts, which means I may drop below the dreaded line. The bright sunny afternoons, the beach here, the mild temperatures and the laid back California folks are having a turkey effect on me, which is a good thing for me, not such a great thing for racking up blog [...]
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(Received the “Best of Holidailies” nod. Thanks, guys!) This entry will be about the best Christmas ever in my adult life. Part 2 will be about the best one as a child. As for many folks, this time of year is very difficult for me, either for reasons of missing loved ones, craving the family [...]
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I find myself derailed by the slightest thing these days… apparently, it’s part of grief. Of “complicated grief,” that is. No, I can’t just have the garden variety “wear black for mourning then get on with life” grief. I have to get the complicated form… which is a lot like driving a car with a [...]
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A while back, I wrote that creativity is messy, in that there is not a linear path from inspiration all the way to execution. Sometimes there are messes to make to get to the good stuff, sometimes it is in cleaning up the mess that one discovers the nugget. Today and yesterday, I have been [...]
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I am travelling to Georgia today for the funeral of my aunt, who was 90. My father’s sister, she is the last of the older generation. A true Southern lady, she had encyclopedic knowledge of our family. I can only hope that some of this is represented in the letters and photos that she left [...]
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