For the Fourth of July when I was seven, someone gave my brother (who was almost six) and me U.S. flags—one for each of us. Each flag was about 12 inches by 18 inches, and it was stapled to a thin dowel about two feet long. The dowel had a […]
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A Story I Couldn’t Tell Before: It’s Okay to Stop
The last time I saw my mother was in mid-June 2014—just over two years ago. That was the trip during which she spit out the Communion host, which I then had difficulty disposing of. This week-long visit gave me my last memories of my mother before she died. Mother had […]
Continue readingHighland Fling or Irish Jig?
In June 1992, the same month that my kids spent at camp in North Carolina, my parents toured the British Isles. In fact, part of the reason we sent our kids to the June camp session was so they could visit my parents later in the summer, after my parents […]
Continue readingOn Cats and Cat Pillows
On a chair in my guest room sit two handmade pillows with cats on them. Although I have owned dogs most of my married life, I really consider myself a cat person. But my husband is not. He wants dogs, only dogs. I embroidered one of the pillows when I […]
Continue readingLearning Flexibility at My Daughter’s Birthday Parties
I wrote an earlier post listing many of the things I included in my daughter’s baby book. One thing I didn’t mention in that post was that I wrote descriptions of how we celebrated each of her first eight birthdays. I reread those entries recently, looking for a hook for […]
Continue readingFirst Signs of My Mother’s Dementia
I think about my mother’s early signs of dementia a lot in May, because I first wondered whether she was getting Alzheimer’s in May 2007. It was the weekend that my daughter graduated from Georgetown University, in Washington, D.C. My parents had joined my husband, my two children, and me […]
Continue readingMy Grandfather’s Clock as a Metaphor for Grief
I’ve written before about my grandfather’s clock—how it formed a part of my childhood, first in my grandparents’ home and then in my parents’; how I deliberately let it wind down after my father died; how I shipped to to my house and got it working again. (see here and […]
Continue readingMy Mother’s Last Doll
I’ve written before about my first doll. I’ve written about my mother’s Storybook Bride doll that I could never play with. And I’ve written about the sewing doll that my grandmother and I made clothes for. This post is about my mother’s last doll. It wasn’t really a doll. It […]
Continue readingBinge Reading
Admit it. You’ve done it. I’ll bet 90% of my readers have done it. You’ve stayed up too late reading. Or you’ve neglected your job or housework or other obligations to read just one more chapter. It’s called binge reading. It’s a recognized disorder. There’s even a WikiHow on the […]
Continue readingA Story I Couldn’t Tell Before: The Sister I Never Knew
Shortly before my mother’s death, my father and I reviewed the draft obituaries my parents had written for themselves several years earlier, long before my mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. At the time my father showed me the obituaries, my mother was about to go into hospice. We knew we […]
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