I stand here by a wall of metal file cabinets—three in a row, four drawers each—a nursing career of memories nestled in the southwest corner of my study. My life’s work written on hundreds, maybe thousands, of pages hanging neatly in file folders. After twenty-two years in our three-bedroom house in suburban Chicago, I am …
Continue reading S is for Saying Farewell to My Nursing Files
An entry for the Blogging from A to Z in April Challenge A few months ago, a blogging friend, VJ Knutson from Canada, asked for a copy of my nursing memoir. I was elated. Caring Lessons was published over 10 years ago, and it's rare I get asked for a copy anymore. I so appreciated …
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 …
Continue reading Caring Lessons Celebrates Tenth Anniversary
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 …
When I turned 72, I used this same "gratitude" blog title. Musing over the past year and a half since Marv died, I can write with the same sentiment today. To catch up, I spent Christmas in Aruba with my daughter and family. You may remember we were there two years ago also, just a …
Thank you, Joost van Beek and team at Nurse Recruiter, for selecting my blog to be among their top nurse blogs for 2019. This is their second year for examining nursing blogs, and I've made their cut this year for a second time. I appreciate their dedication to this project! This organization groups their top …
I had a health scare last week that slapped me, once again, into awareness that I’m alone. I no longer have a husband; I no longer am married. After 56 years, I no longer have someone at home who's there for me the minute something goes wrong. There have been many challenges as I’ve assumed …
Continue reading Please! No more cancer. Been there, done that.
Last week, when the "foreverness" of my loss threatened to plunk me down, I received an uplifting reminder of Marv's ever-present optimism. In his final weeks, he sprang his idea of a TANA pledge on me. TANA is Trinity Christian College's nursing alumni association. I, of course, gave him at least a dozen reasons why …
Continue reading Grace Notes #8 – Marv’s TANA Pledge: An End of Life Vision
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 …
My husband, Marv, took his last breath around four yesterday morning, Wednesday, July 25, 2018. Even though heavily medicated he seemed to know that he had to get up at his usual time and go somewhere. Spooned behind him on our king-sized bed, my left arm tucked around his side, I suddenly felt the absence …
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