Her feet are cold and swollen and sore. She lies in a hospital bed, her legs elevated higher than her heart. Every morning her toes are painted with some antibacterial solution, then wrapped in small sausage-like pieces of gauze. Next her feet are shrouded in white. From her ankles down, she looks like a mummy. The problem is circulation…
Read MoreDepending on how old you are, you'd call him a nerd, a dweeb, a geek. He's the square peg in a world full of round holes. He doesn't walk so much as stumble. He bumps into things. His dialogue, his everyday hellos and goodbyes, are as clumsy as his gait.
His dark curly hair covers his forehead, making him look, at times, like a standard poodle whose groomer has been on vacation too long. His soulful eyes are obscured by horn-rimmed glasses. He's out of shape, a weeble in a room full of Ken dolls.
Read MoreShe didn't get top billing. Actually she didn't get any billing at all. In theater terms, I suppose you'd say she has a bit part. The press release gushes about Bambi and Tootsie and Nicki and Todd. But there's not a single word about Molly. Still, you know the old saying: There are no small parts, only small players. And Molly, when she's on camera…
Read MoreNot long after my parents moved from the house in which I grew up, I took my son back to my old neighborhood. We walked up the flagstone walk my father built, climbed the concrete stairs where Janet Butler and I used to sit and dream away summer nights, and I rang the bell and asked if I could come in…
Read MoreEvery night, after I tucked her into bed, I would sing to her, a silly song, a made-up song, our song. "Stay little, stay little, little little stay, little stay little stay little." She would giggle, and I would smile. The next morning I would say: "Look at you. You grew. The song didn't work." I sang that song for years, and every time I finished, she would cross her heart and promise she wouldn't grow any more.
Read MoreI don't know why it felt so important to find the exact spot. She isn't there. I recognize this. And yet it didn't seem enough just to ride around and lump her together with DICKSON and HARRISON and WHITTENBERGER and all the other people I never met. I knew Amy - knew her for too short a time, too long ago. But I knew her well. She was my daughter's best friend; because of her, her mother and I became friends…
Read MoreCain killed Abel, and Eve buried one son and said goodbye to another. This was paradise lost, not the expulsion from the Garden. Yet I've never heard anyone, not even clergy, talk about Adam and Eve's sorrow at the loss of their sons. 'Adam and his wife had another…
Read MoreI haven't seen him in years; I haven't thought of him in a long, long time. And yet the news of his death saddens me. The world feels changed, somehow, knowing he's no longer in it.
He was a tall, lanky, Ichabod Crane kind of man, a lawyer, not a teacher, but as curious as a child and as unconventional as a child too.
Read MoreTheir house is immaculate. The floors gleam. The sofa is fluffed. The windows, even the window on top of the door, are invisible. Objects placed on the coffee table - a small vase, a candy dish - are safe where they sit. The living room smells like spring. Flowers are being coaxed in the picture window and the scent of new life fills the house. When you drink coffee or Coke, you don't find a dog hair at the bottom of the glass. When you flop into bed at night, dog hair doesn't float around the room…
Read MoreHe was old, in his late 70s or early 80s, and walking with a cane through snow on January's only stormy day. It wasn't much of a storm, just a few inches of sloppy slush, making things slippery for a while. It was just an inconvenience for people with strong backs and sturdy legs but a minefield for the elderly…
Read MoreI am age 3 in the picture, or maybe just turned 4, sitting beside my mother who is leaning against a boulder in the great outdoors. Scrub pines and scraggly trees surround us. A lake is in the distance, gray-white, the same color as the gray-white sky.
The photo is black and white and lacks depth and texture and clarity. No matter how I stare, I can't bring it to life. The grass looks like fuzz. My mother…
Read MoreIt reminds me of when I was a little kid, stealing a snuffed-out cigarette from my father's ashtray, lighting up, taking a puff and feeling dizzy and giddy and grown up all at once. I hated the taste of cigarettes. I have always preferred Oreos and ice cream. But there was something so seductive about the idea of smoking that I worked on liking it for a while. This was what grown-ups did and I wanted to be a grown-up. Logging on to the Internet the first time gave me that same heady feeling…
Read MoreThey bought the house in 1953 with a GI loan for $ 10,200. It was their dream house, far away from the city's three-deckers and bus fumes. The house had a yard, a cellar, a dining room, and an unfinished upstairs…
Read MoreToday is her birthday. She would have been 10. At school they would have sung to her. At home there would have been presents and cake and a party. But she died in June so there is no celebration. In the house not far from Wollaston Beach where Leanne lived with her mother and grandparents, though there are photos of her smiling on the walls and shelves, there are few real smiles anymore. Her absence fills the place. There are no feet pounding up the stairs. No books flung on a chair. No "Mama! Nana! I'm home!" Two women who loved and raised a child are empty without her. They try to put into words their loss, their love and their pain. But words can't hold these things and so as they speak, tears fall…
Read MoreIt was a party game, that's all it was. New Year's Eve, 1994. Our hostess passed out sheets of paper with 10 questions on them. She separated husbands and wives and created new pairs. Let's see how much you remember from 1994, she said. Piece of cake, we all thought. We were a group who knew our news. Lawyers, bankers, teachers, librarians, we devoured newspapers. We watched news shows. We subscribed to Newsweek or Time. Hit us with your toughest question, we thought. We were ready…
Read MoreA few days before Christmas I saw them walking along the street near the viaduct. It was sunset. The sky was red. The trees were black. There was no sidewalk and no other pedestrians except these two young boys. They were brothers, you could tell. They had the same straight, sandy hair. They wore the same knit stocking caps and the same loose-fitting jackets, only in different sizes, and they walked in the same loping way. One was about 12 and the other 5…
Read MoreThis always happens. In the aftermath of tragedy, we look for someone to blame. If we can, we blame the victim. What was Sharon Tate doing with all those people in her house when her husband was out of town? Why would an intelligent woman ever jog through Central Park after dark? Why was Nicole Simpson with Ron Goldman anyway? Blame insulates us from tragedy. Blame gives us a kind of control…
Read MoreIf you're feeling a little overwhelmed because Christmas is four days away and you've been shopping and wrapping and writing cards forever and you still have more to do - stockings to stuff, cookies to bake, more gifts to buy, plus a dinner to plan and cook - take a break. Head to your nearest bookstore and grab a copy of Lois Edgerly's "Women's Words, Women's Stories." You won't have time to read it until after the holiday, of course, but that's OK. It's meant to be read then…
Read MoreIt was Thanksgiving week, a time when kids, especially young kids, tend to be off the wall. Holidays do this to children. They're like horses on the home stretch who know the barn is just over the hill. All they want is to break into a gallop and keep galloping until they get there. A teacher's job isn't just to keep them trotting along…
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