I met Al first. He was the one I watched from my window, washing his car, sweeping the driveway, cleaning the gutters, mowing and raking and shoveling. He was the one walking his big black dog, Dante, carrying in the groceries and taking out the trash, waving and smiling and talking to everyone along the way. He used to watch my dog, Molly, when my husband and I were out of town…
Read MoreShe wasn't the prettiest child in the room, because they were all the prettiest, babies still, not one of them over 3, flawless skin, bright eyes, shy, sweet smiles. But my daughter and I were drawn to this particular baby because she reminded us of Lucy, my daughter's little girl, with her sweet round face and her light wispy hair and the thin pale line on her breastbone that told us she had had heart surgery, too.
Read MoreIt's the first time in a year I've seen Rosemary happy. The strain is gone from her face. The tension in her neck, her eyes, the way she held herself tight, the way she was braced for tragedy - all vanished, like a soul exorcised, like night dispelled by day.
Read MoreGreat, thick, ugly clouds of smoke rose in the air, turning a blue sky black, then stopped and spiraled downward, rolling, one after another, like creatures from a horror movie, down the hills, over burning brush, and onto the deserted road just a median strip away from where my husband and I were stuck in traffic.
Read MoreI strap her into her car seat and tell her that we are going to the doctor. And she smiles at me and says, "Mimi's house."
"First we're going to the doctor, Lucy, then you can come to my house, OK?" And then we sing, in big, booming voices, "Police officers, firefighters, a doctor or a nurse. They help me if I'm hurt. They help me if I'm hurt!" over and over until we arrive at Norwood Hospital.
Read MoreI don't know when the birds became important. Knowing their names and their sounds. And the garden. Working it. Growing it.
Once upon a spring, it was all about the boys, chasing them away through most of grade school, first, second, third, fourth, and fifth grade, then suddenly, one day, reversing the game and running after them. Lilacs enclosed my old schoolyard, huge hedges of them that were taller than the tallest sixth-grader. And every May they perfumed the air in our stuffy, overcrowded classroom…
Read MoreThis is what I tell myself as I watch a man not watch his child: Cut him some slack. Don't be judgmental. Maybe this is the one time of the week when he gets to sit and relax and read a newspaper.
Maybe the child in the pool playing by himself isn't even his. Maybe this middle-aged man is merely a friend of the boy's mother, keeping her company, doing her a favor, simply hanging out and not responsible for the boy in any way.
Read MoreI met them for the first and only time eight years ago. I don't remember who invited me, but I remember the house where the meeting took place. There was a parlor connected to another parlor with big, comfortable chairs; then a bigger room, light and airy with a long banquet table dressed for a party.
Read MoreI don't think about her every day. And I don't cry for her anymore. Not often, anyway. Not the way I used to.
I can look at pictures of her young and I can smile. I can read what she wrote in my baby book and not fall apart. I can even listen to the record she made…
Read MoreI planted 200 tulips last Nov 14. I know this because I wrote it down in my gardening journal, a little book my family contends is proof that I am clearly obsessed. Who, over the age of 6, they ask, cuts out pictures of morning glory and columbine and saves the little stick-in-the ground plastic identifiers that come with potted plants? I try to explain, as I search for my glue stick and scissors, that at least what I cut and paste in my journal stays put. Look. See? Orange tulips tinged with yellow. Purple anemones. Baby coreopsis. Sapphire blue delphinium. This is what is supposed to be growing in my garden right now…
Read MoreI've taken more than 200 pictures. A few are okay. You take photos of little kids in baseball uniforms and you're sure to get some decent shots. But not one of them comes close to capturing all that's been happening at Devoll Field in Canton, Mass., for the last six weeks.
Every Saturday morning at 8:30, the field swarms with the smallest players in town. It's Little League, T-Ball division, and the place is packed…
Read MoreI've listened to their stories - the painful tales of loss that parents, daughters, husbands, and wives tell. I've looked through thick photo albums they've placed in my hands and at pictures on mantels and walls. I've followed their slouched shoulders down narrow halls, or up a few stairs into bedrooms, where memories live. These rooms are full of intimate things - sweaters hung in closets, banners tacked over beds, books, tapes, magazines, stuffed animals, trophies, a football jacket tossed on a chair, a guitar in its case, a child's flannel pajamas, sneakers in the middle of the floor as if the wearer has just stepped out of them and will be back to claim them sometime soon.
But the wearer will never be back.
Read MoreDoom and Gloom. Like Eeyore, the sad-sack donkey, the news seems to spread woe all around - in the car, on the television, at the doorstep. It bends and distorts. It turns us around, too, yanking even spring's new green rug, soft and lovely, right out from under us.
"A fine day today, folks. Definitely spring. Sunshine and in the upper 60s. But it's not going to last. Tomorrow there's a cold front coming and rain, more rain, so get those umbrellas ready." That's what someone on the radio said eight days ago when the sun was shining and the air was as soft as breath.
Read MoreThe Quiet Car. Quiet. Even the word is hushed. Silent. Calm. Not busy or active. No talking in a LOUD voice to the person next to you. No talking on the phone. No radios blaring. No movies. No TV. No intrusive sounds at all.
The Quiet Car is Amtrak Acela's semisecret sanctum, and my once-in-a-while refuge, a place where noise of any kind is not allowed. Which is not always what I want, to be unplugged and silent and still, not when I'm traveling with friends or family or children. "Want some M&Ms? Want to play `Go Fish'? You really want me to read `Bear Snores On' again?" Sometimes noise is important.
Read MoreShe is angry, but who can blame her? Her sister - "my beloved sister" - died of lung cancer, writes a reader named Barbara.
Her sister was diagnosed in April 2004 with lung cancer. She thought she had a cold. She died two years later.
Whatever the cause - radon? cigarettes? asbestos? pesticides? pollution? - nobody knows.
Read More`Who is a senior?" My daughter e-mails this question and I read the words and think, "I don't know." Who is a senior? Not Kate. She's in college. And not Ellie. She's a freshman. Is this a trick? A test? Why is she asking me about seniors?
I e-mail her back a big question mark.
Read MoreIt's easy to believe in Easter morning, with its message of resurrection and eternal life, when the mortal life we're living is comfortable and good. When our children are tucked in their beds, safe and well. When our husband is well, too, and our mother and father and sisters and brothers; when everyone we care about is reachable, by plane or by train or by phone.
It's easy to believe in Easter morning when death is confined to newspaper headlines and illness is only a setback, not incurable. When cemeteries and chronic care facilities are not where we go every day. When it's Jesus on the cross, not our son, our mother, our daughter.
Read MoreAfter I read "Still Alice" I wanted to stand up and tell a train full of strangers, "You have to get this book." I'd taken it with me to New York along with the newest Stephen King, which I was smack in the middle of - a thriller, a potboiler, a "please, please, please don't talk to me now" book. And I was looking forward to three and a half hours of uninterrupted reading time. I settled into my seat, but…
Read MoreI was an only child who wanted just one thing. A brother. A sister. A baby in the house. I wished for this my whole childhood, on every first star, on every dandelion gone to seed, on every wishbone, on every word spoken in unison with someone else, and on my birthday every year when I blew out the candles on my cake…
Read MoreRebirth, everywhere. Across the street and down the street. In my front yard and just beyond my backyard. In the ground and above the ground.
Al, my neighbor across the street whose heart stopped beating 230 days ago, turned 80 last Friday. Lazarus, I call him. And he smiles and shakes his head in wonderment and gratitude and turns to his wife, Katherine, and she smiles, too.
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