Surviving a Year of Loss
As the first anniversary of my father’s death approaches (he died on January 5, 2015), I find myself increasingly melancholy. I’m no longer in shock, as I was for the first few weeks after he was gone. I recently read through my journal from those weeks, and I wondered how I managed to function. I […]
Memories of Laughter, of Distance, and of Death
This picture of me and my brother was one of my mother’s favorites. It was taken in September 1972, shortly after we returned from the ceremony where he received his Eagle Scout award. He had just turned fifteen, and I was sixteen-and-a-half. That had been a long day in our home. My maternal grandmother, my […]
Fighting Fires: Now and Then
Many of the forest fires raging in the West this summer are not far from places I know—outside of Twisp and Omak and Okanogan near Lake Chelan in Washington State; Clark Fork near Lake Pend d’Oreille in the Idaho Panhandle; and other fires in Oregon. I remember fires from lightning raging across Rattlesnake Mountain when […]
A Year of Firsts: On Losing and On Finding Again
My mother died on July 4 last year, so I am completing a year of firsts—the first Thanksgiving without her, the first Christmas, her birthday in early March, St. Patrick’s Day (a big holiday for her), Easter, Mother’s Day, and now the anniversary of her death. In many ways, I lost her several years ago, […]
A Kitchen Bargain
My father liked to cook, but my mother did not. Cooking was required of a good homemaker, and she vowed to be a good homemaker. So she prepared the meals all the years her children were growing up, and did so reasonably well. But her heart was never in it. My parents made a deal […]
My Grandfather’s Clock
When I was in second grade or so, my class sang the old song, “My Grandfather’s Clock,” by Henry Clay Work. The lyrics to the first verse are My grandfather’s clock was too large for the shelf, So it stood ninety years on the floor; It was taller by half than the old man himself, […]
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of Social Media in Times of Stress
Before my father passed away on January 5, I had scheduled some posts on my Facebook author page about Clean Off Your Desk Day on January 12, and today’s Organize Your Home Day. I forgot about these posts in the middle of much bigger worries. So in addition to my emotional posts from this blog […]
Stories: Past, Present, and Future
A week ago when I posted, my father was alive. He was a regular reader of my blog, and often called or emailed me when I posted about family issues. He didn’t call me to comment on last Monday’s post about my grandparents’ house. But he did email me on Monday about one of his […]
Change in Plans—In This Blog as in Life
I had a humorous post lined up for today, but I learned Monday night that my father had passed away suddenly. You may remember that my mother died on July 4. He had missed her terribly for the last six months. He told me after Christmas that it was the first Christmas in sixty-six years […]
Haunting Book: The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak
I’ve posted about other haunting books set during wartime (see here and here). The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak, is as haunting as any of those featured in my earlier reviews. A writer friend of mine gushed one day, “You’ve got to read The Book Thief. It’s so wonderful. And I am the Messenger. Zusak’s […]