Novelist | Singer
I learned something new today. Don’t you love that? Life has a good way of handing us humility in good measure almost every time we open our mouths. Here’s my discovery: Having published two of these excerpts on caring for a loved one, I suddenly started to think about the terms I have been using,…
This is the first part of a multipart series on caretaking for a loved one. I will delve into several aspects of caretaking and why it is one of the most important things you will ever do in your life. Caretaking is both a blessing and a curse. It sets up the potential for a…
Is this you? Born between WWII and 1990, some semblance of white middle class, educated beyond middle/high school, house owner, car owner (maybe multiple), steady job, possibly retirement plans in place. Then you–and I–hit the Sweet Spot. This is not intended to brag, shame, or judge. It could be a slap on the forehead, the…
I search out the plover mom and the chicks in the creek, just south of Good Harbor Beach, where tidal water fills and empties twice daily from the marsh. I almost step on them in my quest. They are huddled in a shallow trench that someone dug into the wet sand. The mom breaks and…
After a dogless six months, we brought our new boy, Sailor, an eight-week-old Australian Shepherd puppy into our house. Changes to our routine are now well established by COVID. While the shutdown has been an interruption, without a dog, we’re now free to stay inside until we actually have to go out, rather than being…
My friends all know about the dog I lost in September 2020. She lives like an angel embedded in my memory, perfectly behaved, most beautiful face, smartest, well trained, understood hundreds of words, Best Dog in the World. To add height to that already noble pedestal, she lived to be 17, spending a couple of…
She is panting for no reason. The day before she seized several times. During one episode, she fell, peed herself and landed on her side at the brink of the open stairs off the deck. I had to catch her to keep her from falling down the flight. Last night she woke me twice and…
It never occurred to me that caring for my mother in her last days’ journey with Alzheimer’s would be repeated only several years later. My dear dog and faithful companion Lila has turned the corner into her twilight days. Certainly there are physical similarities; loss of faculties (sight, hearing), loss of mobility and energy, but…
I felt like I had never been to a funeral. I am 55 years old and have at least several dozen funerals under the soles of my feet. Still, I stood at the casket trying desperately to see her through that drawn, plastic expression creased with makeup she would never have worn. The hint of…
My mother is nearly absent from the memory book of my first ten years. Only a few episodes remain in my subconscious film strip. Two stand-outs occurred when I was about six years old. One was when she whisked me to the sink to whack my back, dislodging the nasty morsel of melon lodged in…