Last week I celebrated my birthday for the 67th time. It is a weird thing to be this age as underneath the senior discount, the wrinkles, and tired eyes is an undersized ten year old girl with a face full of freckles, an overbite, and hair her mother couldn’t get to lay down without a … Read more

If you walked through the door of my house, I could easily count for you the number of pieces bought new on the first floor. The total is five. Everything else has come to me through the divine intervention of antique stores, thrift stores, estate sales, the curb, friends wanting to unload something, or Craigslist. … Read more

The other day on the way to work a dead bird was on the side of the road. It looked like a baby owl but as I had never seen that before I wasn’t entirely sure. It was at the corner of a well-traveled road where, at least in the morning, many cars run the … Read more

Mark’s favorite holiday was Thanksgiving – the bigger the table the better. For all of us, the last one he was alive was our most memorable. It would be the first one we would be celebrating without Mallory who had moved to California and had to work that day. At my sister’s house the night … Read more

When I was a little girl, a cat gave birth to kittens underneath the shed at the back of the yard where my siblings and I grew up. Our mom discovered the litter and let us bring them into the garage. We were obsessed with these newborn cats, held them, chased them, squeezed them until … Read more

If there was ever a week that checked every box of emotions, the most recent one would have been it. Highs, lows, disappointment, and the finale on Saturday a car that decided to join me in the lane I was driving in and then get mad at me for not getting out of his way. … Read more

I rarely and only vaguely have written about my dating life for a multitude of reasons. My experience has been that if I so much as breathe the word dating, everyone feels the need to weigh in and tell me they would never ever ever date anyone if their husband died, or suggest a fling … Read more

Dear Mark, Yesterday marked the day you abruptly left this earth five years ago. The fact that you have remained dead fluctuates from astounding me to pissing me off. A few days after you died, when I had worn and slept in the same clothes for three days, I showered, put clean clothes on, did … Read more

Earlier this month over the course of eight days, I attended two funerals and a wedding. The first funeral was on a Friday morning for the husband of a friend’s friend whom I have gotten to know over the years. When Mark died she gave me a pen with a note telling me to keep … Read more

From the moment I met Mark I was wowed by his intellect. He took deep dives into subjects that interested him and I often wondered if he had a photographic memory. He could recite facts easily about a variety of subjects and I’d always ask, “How do you know all this stuff?” “I read it,” … Read more