An email from a friend of our daughter Kathryn is among the most treasured I will ever receive. Her friend spoke of text messages he and Kath exchanged a week or so before her recent death. Specifically, from her, this: Just loving moment to moment. I’m fully in my Zen evolution, letting go of […]
Leaving the World Singing Read More »
Our daughter Kathryn, 57, is an excellent role model for many people in many different ways. She is an easy person to admire. She enjoys an array of notable worldly accomplishments, a vast breadth of knowledge she generously shares, is kind-hearted, a first-rate problem solver, and has a highly functioning funnybone. But none of that
Admirable Daughter Read More »
When I die I want to simply disappear into the ether. Having arrived an alien to all but God nearly 80 years ago, slipping out the back, my adios no more than whatever mess or beauty I’ve created while here, is in keeping with how I’ve attempted to honor the parade of treasures bestowed upon
Dedicated to the three sons of my friend Scott Every once in a while I sob uncontrollably. Not from sadness, but from feeling the pain of human suffering throughout the world while also feeling the many ways I have been blessed with teachers and experiences that help me navigate that suffering—sometimes even gracefully. Just
The Gift of a Friend’s Death Read More »
Barely touched down in Santa Fe after 28 years in Vermont, the phone in my heart rings. My beloved. Time to rest her ashes on sacred ground overlooking the Pacific––an agreement we made long before she considered ending her life two years ago. I’m on it, I say. Though I wonder: Why now,
Loving the Wound of Emptiness Read More »
Today I enter year 78. Sixteen months and a day after my beloved’s departure. Not three weeks in my new home. Last night I was guided to watch “This is It,” the documentary of the three-month rehearsal of what was to be the capstone tour of Michael Jackson’s career, which of course didn’t occur because
I Won’t Be Surprised Read More »
I felt a small bug crawling on my back inside my t-shirt. Tick, I feared, whipping an arm over my shoulder. Only one finger could reach far enough to extract the creature expediently. A procedure it did not survive. Turns out it was a ladybug. I apologized that my lack of composure led to
The Universe Also Winks Read More »
A friend is helping me “re-home” many belongings as I dramatically downsize the physical accouterments of my life in preparation for taking up residence in the new tiny monastery the bank and I jointly own. Among them is the first real bed my beloved and I purchased over 40 years ago. At that time, it
Dead but not Absent Read More »