The expression on his face didn’t convey much. I knew he was tired of talking and more exhausted from living. My father, limp from the chemotherapy and radiation, laid on his hospital bed in the middle of my childhood room. At this point, his oncologist wanted to put a period on what he could do. In a quiet voice, he told us that measures needed to be taken to make his remaining days comfortable. As he said this, I wondered [...]
Death
I sit alone. On my right, the German chocolate cake corners me. As my fork cuts into the cake, a million speckles of random memories play like I am watching a familiar movie. I chew with purpose. But it still doesn’t make these flashes stop. It’s just a cake. Right? It doesn’t mean anything. The whispers yell louder biting into the silence that surrounds me. It’s been three years. Really? I ask myself. One Thousand Ninety Five Days since I’ve [...]
On Friday, my father’s birthday passed like any other day. When he was alive, we would all go to dinner and then celebrate by buying a German Chocolate cake, singing Happy Birthday, and feeding him pieces of cake. Even writing this memory, various images flash in my mind. His smile, my mom’s laughter, my sister giving my father a hug, while we all formed a circle around him. I am trying to reconcile that memory with the present. There isn’t [...]
I was running late to my first meditation workshop. Only five minutes after it started, but I was still late. This is not a habitual pattern for me; I am either on time or early to an appointment, meeting, or dinner with friends. The ache of time passing is something I sense and understand even through ordinary circumstances. This year, in particular, my daughter will enter kindergarten and I will inch even closer to age forty. This past week, I [...]
I never really thought about the number 22. I’ve known about the number in various contexts. It is the number worn by one of my favorite Dallas Cowboy players and all time NFL leading rusher, Emmitt Smith and also the name of a classic, favorite book of mine, Joseph Heller’s Catch-22. 22 is the atomic number for salt on the periodic table of elements and for those Sarah Palin admirers it is the number she wore on her high [...]
When the inevitable came, I was going to be prepared. I am the girl who never bounces a check, is always five minutes early to an appointment, and who keeps a stash of thank-you cards, birthday cards, and congratulations cards just in case. You can never be too organized, right? In college, all professors emphasized that organization was the key to success. If you took copious notes and studied diligently, you would do well on your test. In the workplace, [...]
