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The past seven days have been a real roller-coaster of a week.  The two weeks prior to last weekend weren’t much better.
May 27
Throughout the day, Sibylle noticed that Nekko was behaving a bit oddly.  As her symptoms became more pronounced, Sibylle took Nekko to the vet.  Nekko had experienced hypoglycemia, or insulin shock.  There was too [...]

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While a lot of memories of my mother bring some tears with them, some are good. Occasionally they bring a smile or laughter. Yesterday was one of those good memory days.
Some background
When the Beatles Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album was released it caused quite a stir in the press. Enough [...]

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In the last year of my life:

Michele committed suicide after receiving a diagnosis of cancer
My mother’s lung cancer returned and was diagnosed as inoperable, untreatable, and terminal
After surviving with grace and dignity twice as long as predicted, my Mom passed away peacefully at home.
The acts of closure I engineered with my Mom not only gave [...]

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I’m getting ready to take a week’s vacation with my father in Oregon, and I am finding myself somewhat down. Normally in the days before a trip I’d be up and excited, but this trip is different on many levels and for many reasons.
Except for a brief three-day jaunt last January, this will be the [...]

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Having experienced to one degree or another the impact of four deaths in the past two years has focused a lot of my thinking on death and dying. Ultimately I have come to an understanding that works for me. I share it here mostly to capture it in words and solidify it in my mind.
I [...]

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In my conversations with a friend, she made the statement that she wasn’t sure I was ready for a new relationship. Companionship, certainly, but relationship - maybe not. Her statement echoed thoughts of my own.
How do you know when you are ready, following a trauma, to rejoin that part of life the trauma impacted? We’ve [...]

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In the book, and the movie, The World According To Garp there is a scene were young T. S. Garp is at the ocean’s edge and his mother yells to him to, “Beware the undertow!” The sound of the waves make it hard to hear so what Garp thinks she said was, “Beware the undertoad!” [...]

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Several nights ago I had a very vivid dream about getting a tattoo. So vivid that I am still remembering it even now. The gist of the dream was that someone else (I don’t remember who), and I, decided to get full-lenght tattoos of pastel flames up our arms. The ink started at our wrists [...]

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As I move from acknowledging Michele’s death to accepting the new reality of life without her, I have become aware of the segmentation occurring within my personality. No, I’m not developing split personalities, although one could argue it would be hard to differentiate from my behavior prior to her death, but I am starting to [...]

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Since my marriage, and until her death, my whole life, was centered around my relationship with Michele. I defined who I was, and measured how I was doing, by that relationship. To have it wrested from me suddenly and without warning has left me adrift, I have no grounding upon which to stand.
Now that I [...]

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