“Can I help you?“ a butcher yelled from a packaged meat display. A few feet away, I was standing, clueless, in front of an impressive array of glass-encased chunks of red meat. “Yes, I guess,” I bellowed back. When he was situated across from me, I asked, “How many pounds of a chuck roast do …
Category: aging
Grace Notes #13: A Time to Keep Mum
If you're ever in a situation like mine, do NOT tell your daughter you have a few days free before your winter schedule of activities begin. I did, and I paid! My so-called free days were a recent Friday and Saturday; I was already babysitting for her that Saturday night, so I was looking forward …
Grace Notes #12: Miracle
A miracle happened while Pastor David was pouring the grape juice. Standing in front of him on the pulpit, to his right, I told myself to concentrate on the moment. Focus on his face. Focus on his words. Focus on the flowing of the juice. Today, at nearly 77, I served communion as an elder …
Grace Notes #11: Grief at Five Months
This time I didn’t have to lie on the floor; this time I used the chair. The occasion? A purposeful visit to my closet. I’d awakened the day after Christmas with a feeling of optimism. I’d made it through Christmas with my eyes misting up only once, and that was during the Christmas Eve service …
Grace Notes #7 – Out of Control, A Rant
I’m very glad the last few days are over. “Everything is out of control,” I bellowed to my daughter over the phone. Then I listed legal and financial paperwork I was dealing with and added that I needed a window washer and someone else to check my eavestroughs, and did she remember my evergreens are …
Grace Notes #6 – Grief at Three Months
I’m a grief group dropout, attending three but dropping out of two. There is no one right way to grieve. And no one can tell you if you should attend a grief group or not, or if you choose to, what kind of group to attend. Knowing this, and having a curiosity about grief groups, …
Grace Notes #5 – Outrageous
At book club last week, we finished Joan Chittister’s The Gift of Years: Growing Older Gracefully. Many things in the book resonated with me, but I needed her chapter on “Future” right now as I emerge from the two-month mark of being a widow (there, I said the word I don’t like, but it seems …
Grace Notes #4: Skating
When Marv had his first cancer, prostate, in 1999, I fell off the rails. As I was telling that story to a mutually grieving friend last week, I thought back to what a therapist told me at the time: "Sounds like you're bouncing along the bottom." Here’s the situation as I described it in Caring …
Grace Notes #3: Numb
During the prelude yesterday morning in church, when, as is custom there, most people were chatting across pews or visiting in the aisles, I suddenly wanted to dart up to the front, cocoon myself in a cozy blanket, lie under the baby grand, and absorb the vibrations while singing along in my heart: Why should …
Grace Notes #2: “You’ll do fine.”
Every time in the last few months that I voiced apprehension about going on alone, Marv would simply say, "You'll do fine." It's a month today that he passed away around four in the morning on July 25. I cannot describe the last month in any coherent way. But the recurring theme in my head …
Write Along with Me 