I’ve written many times about those first tomatoes; the kind, as I said, that “we wait all year for: just cut up in big chunks in a bowl, with a pressed clove of garlic, a whole lot of torn basil, a pinch of sea salt…Some people doll them up: a splash of balsamic vinegar, say, […]
NOT EVEN SPRING CAN HURRY GRIEF ALONG
AT A TIME WHEN EVERYTHING ELSE SEEMS TO BE COMING BACK TO LIFE, HOW DO WE GRIEVE? WHAT DO WE DO WHEN, IN THIS SEASON OF RENEWAL, LIFE STILL FEELS LIKE A LIFE-SENTENCE? Easter. Passover. Spring. The days lengthen, grow warm. Everything seems to come back to life. Everything, that is, except the one we loved. […]
PLEASE SAY MY BELOVED’S NAME: HOW AND WHY TO TALK ABOUT THE DECEASED
I FEED THIS GUINNESS STOUT CHOCOLATE LAYER CAKE TO MY FATHER ONLY IN MY DREAMS
THIS IS (SHE SAID MODESTLY) AMONG THE BEST CLASSIC CHOCOLATE DESSERTS I EVER CAME UP WITH: A GUINNESS STOUT CHOCOLATE LAYER CAKE THAT PULLS OUT ALL THE STOPS. AND CERTAINLY, IT’S PERFECT FOR ST. PATRICK’S DAY, WHICH IS WHEN I’VE OFTEN MADE IT. BUT THE STORY BEHIND IT — WHICH CONCERNS MY ONE-OF-A-KIND FATHER, WHO […]
DEAR FRIEND OF THE WIDOW: FOOLPROOF CONSOLATION, EIGHT WAYS TO HELP THE GRIEVING
THE VALENTINES HE DIDN’T KNOW HE SENT
NOT “FROM THE OTHER WORLD.” NOT “SHE’S SENDING YOU A MESSAGE.” STILL, SOMETIMES SOMETHING YOU DIDN’T FULLY REALIZE YOU HAD BEEN GIVEN MAKES ITSELF KNOWN. Someone must have told me, back in the miasma of grief and unreality that followed Ned’s unexpected death, to call Arkansas Social Security. Told me to ask about “widow’s benefits.” And […]
SEX AS A DEATH-DEFYING ACT: SOMETIMES YOU HAVE TO JUST DIVE IN. SOMETIMES YOU WANT TO. SOMETIMES YOU DON’T.
WIDOW, WILL YOU DANCE WITH ME? AN INVITATION
My dear fellow member of the Club No One Wants to Join, I started Widowhood Wednesday just under a year ago. I was almost seventeen years past my first widowhood, almost three past my second. I was accompanying (to the extent it is possible that another person can accompany another in the freshets of recent […]
CHARLOTTE ZOLOTOW’S “SLEEPY BOOK” AWAKENS IN CHINA
A PERSON HAS A LIFE, WITH A DEFINITE AND IRREFUTABLE BEGINNING, MIDDLE, AND END. BUT, WITH A BOOK IT’S NOT SO CLEAR. I spent a recent Sunday, improbably, working on an introduction to the forthcoming Chinese edition of a children’s book entitled Sleepy Book. Written in 1956 or ’57 and published in 1958, its author is […]
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