Last year I stumbled on a delightful Australian blogger who was participating in the A to Z April blogging challenge. The challenge involves blogging every day during April, except Sunday, on a letter of the alphabet, starting with the letter A on April 1. Makes sense right? Thirty days hath September, April.... Skip Sundays and …
Category: memoir
Tears of Thanksgiving
They started in my church parking lot. When I turned in, off of 26th Street, an older masked man motioned for me to veer right. Then a second older masked man signaled for me to open my window. He leaned over and told me to follow the car in front of me. I did. And …
Memoir-in-Pieces: Announcing Countdown for Cancer Book
My second book, our experience of my husband's terminal small cell lung cancer, is on its final trajectory toward completion. I started it with his first warning sign that something was awry. And hope to have it published by the holidays. In Part One, Refusing Treatment, I describe how the book is structured: "...my story …
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Caring Lessons Celebrates Tenth Anniversary
Ten years ago this month, the completed copies of Caring Lessons: A Nursing Professor's Journey of Faith and Self arrived in Chicago. I began the writing in 2000, after retiring as professor emerita of nursing from Trinity Christian College in Palos Heights, IL. After many revisions, I finished it, finally, around 2008. Then the publishing process took …
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Writing Workshops: Helpful?
Have you ever had your writing critiqued in a writing workshop? If not, you’d be in for an experience like none other. My first encounter was in one of the first writing workshops I took in the year 2000. The piece was my first attempt at writing poetry; in fact, it was one of my …
Grief at Twenty-four Months: A Rummage Sale Made Me Do It
On this second anniversary of my husband's death, I've made an unplanned purge of his belongings. Our church's rummage sale, first canceled due to the virus, then reinstated a few months later, prompted me to do it. Just two years and two days ago, Marv directed our daughter to take his cords to our church's …
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Grief at Twenty-three Months: More Writing
As I was approaching this two-year mark of my husband's death, I noticed not all is well yet as I'd hoped. I wasn't expecting the impact of loss to disappear, but I was hoping for fewer experiences of active grieving. This past month, a few members of Marv's family have passed away. That brought grieving …
Grief at Twenty-two Months: Write Along with Me
Time heals all wounds is a cliché that’s been around a long time. And disputed as well. Counselor Worth Kilcrease wrote “time [alone] does not heal all wounds. A more apt saying is ‘It’s what you do with the time that heals’” (Psychology Today, April 24, 2008). Time is an “active, working process, not a …
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Stay at Home Risk – Leaping Out of Your Comfort Zone
“I’m so glad I’ve been a widow this long,” I tell folks when we talk about what it’s like to stay at home during this virus. “I’ve learned to be alone.” I’m moved to say this because of an acquaintance whose husband just died. I envision her doing the necessary paperwork without any proper closure. …
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A Ordinary Kitchen Story During Extraordinary Times
It’s four o’ clock on a Wednesday morning here in beautiful South Dakota and I am still awake. Doesn’t that opening line sound a bit like “Well, it’s been a quiet week in Lake Wobegon, Minnesota, my hometown…” I’m not sure why I’m still awake, but there are two likely reasons. I came home last …
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Write Along with Me 