Hope
The two bald toddlers are cancer patients. There are pizza boxes spread all around the end of the hospital bed, surrounded by IV pumps, on the hematology-oncology ward of Children’s Hospital. The main patient is two years old; they are …
Yahrzeit Letter
My father was a disturbed man. It is not his death I mourn when his yahrzeit comes every year; it’s something else. This is a complicated grief. Today his yahrzeit brings up less terror and more sadness as I trust …
No Crying Allowed
We all stand and sit in varying postures of disquiet, some on high stools around tables, others on low cushioned chairs, some up at the bar overlooking the country club greens, and one or two even order drinks. Am I …
One day long ago
“One day a long time ago,” I tell my granddaughter, “when my father was only two years old, he wandered away from his house and yard, he went right down the sidewalk and he walked for a long while until …
Flight
The little blackbird catches my eye, hurtling purposefully toward the slender tip of a spiky desert agave to my left. He’s going to smash into the side of the building, I think, but he snags the top of the succulent—an …
Forty-four Years
Forty-four years of marriage has its own rhythm. It’s seeing your husband and thinking, I know you. It’s finding value—lots of it—in difference. It’s laughing the easiest and the longest together. It’s knowing the ways that marriage is both less …
Unremarkable
HERE’S WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU’RE WAITING FOR MORE TEST RESULTS FOR THE SUSPICIOUS SHADOW ON YOUR HUSBAND’S CHEST X-RAY: You give money to homeless people who say they want food. You stick around to talk to them when they seem …
Commonalities
In her book about living with schizophrenia, The Center Cannot Hold, Elyn R. Saks speaks of how her psychosis served to protect her from painful thoughts and feelings, how the unconscious mind served as a defender of the conscious mind …
Part of This Tree
“Is it in the Valley of Remembrance?” I asked. “No, it’s more east, to the right of the Valley,” Steve said. “Toward the Matriarchs?” “Yes, I think it’s toward the Court of the Matriarchs,” he answered, “in Sunland Gardens.” When …
Passover 5775
We have escaped from Mitzrayim. For all the right reasons—the insights, and values, and choices we’ve made have allowed us to leave. I knew what I was doing when I left my cousins and brothers and sisters behind in the …