I see the older woman walk slowly up our driveway, step by leaden step, watching out for icy patches. Her head is down, so I can only see the top of her forest-green hood, attached to the overcoat she wears. It’s big on her, and I wonder if it belonged to a son now living in another town, probably another state. Continue reading
true story
Oxen Mystic
I woke up in the middle of the night as sick as a dog. Wait. My dog never got this sick. Henry, my Golden, had the constitution of an ox and the compassion of a Mystic, so he followed me from the bedroom as I raced to the bathroom.
I don’t remember what happened next, except when I awakened I had a huge headache, an even bigger lump on my head, and someone breathing into my nose. Continue reading
Heart Beats
I open my daughter’s refrigerator and frown. Hot dogs. Chicken nuggets. Left-over spaghetti. Root beer.
When I’d received my daughter’s desperate plea: “Can you come watch the kids? We have to go to a town meeting and the babysitter just bailed,” it was almost past my bedtime (kidding, kinda) – 7:00 p.m. My guy and I had just finished dinner and on a whim, I brought the leftovers. Continue reading
Ruptured and Repaired
I spent five days in the hospital this week – not as a patient, but as a visitor, an observer, a worried spouse, and a woman who had preconceptions blown over by kindness, intelligence, and wonder.
But first with the worry.
I rushed my guy to the ER Friday afternoon after insisting on taking his temperature. Why oh why do men like to “play it cool” even when in obvious discomfort? I suppose the answer to that goes back millennium, maybe to the first cavemen. Continue reading
No Regrets
Sightseers into Pilgrims, by Evangeline Paterson
I used to think --
loving life so greatly --
that to die would be
like leaving a party
before the end.
Now I know that the party
is really happening
somewhere else;
that the light and the music --
escaping in snatches
to make the pulse beat
and the tempo quicken --
come from a long way
away.
And I know too
that when I get there
the music will never
end.
