All the Time in the World, Part 1 I try to remember my mother wasn’t always old. When George returned from Europe in 1946, he and Stellajoe could finally begin their life together. The world was their oyster, waiting to be discovered. . . . (Continue reading) Part 2 December 2015 My mother’s hopes and […]
we have forgotten so much of the matriarchal language the songs of mothers rocking children to sleep babies nursing at the breast cotton cloth close to the skin rhubarb pie and a dollop of ice-cream. dinnertime conversations of remembrances and grandma and papa that history of gone but not forgotten. someone said a few years […]
Summer 2012 As spring in North Carolina gives way to summer heat, as it always does before the calendar declares the change of season, I pack up my little house. It was no surprise to anyone that it sold quickly, still I am shocked to already be doing this. From my empty attic bedroom, I […]
I became a gardener when I bought a house in Raleigh, on my own, and restored the old garden. Up until then, I merely did yard work. I was fifty-five. I considered myself a writer when I started my first blog and shared it publicly. Before that I was just a journaler. I was fifty-eight. […]
The Story: Strawberry Shortcake was a June staple in my childhood, Pacific NW strawberry season coming as it did in convergence with my mother’s birthday, my birthday, and my sister’s birthday. It was never ever made with the tasteless little store-bought sponge cakes sold in the produce section at the grocery store. Never with pound […]
This post was originally published on my blog in May 2013, ten months after I moved in with my mother. I know my sisters and I would be viewed with envy by those caring for a parent whose dementia caused a drastic personality change or who sees giraffes in the backyard. We know how lucky […]
The Story: I had the great privilege during my sojourn with my mother to attend a master class at Hedgebrook women’s writing retreat center on Washington’s Whidbey Island. A week of living alone in a tiny cottage and being cooked for. None of the locally sourced healthy food was food Mama could have eaten, due […]
Mama has cognitive dysfunction, or brain fog. As the years go on, gradually more of her brain succumbs to the fog, while other parts continue to fight it—and me—in every way it can. While dementia is advanced cognitive dysfunction, and Alzheimer’s a type of dementia, I still don’t believe she has those more debilitating diseases. […]
It’s the ultimate spring cleaning, and I’m not talking spiderwebs and dust. I’m cleaning out the overflowing basement room that has been storing the ephemera of my parents lives for the nearly sixty years they lived here. When my parents migrated across the country in 1946, after the war, they must have brought only what […]
December 2015 My mother wasn’t always old, I try to remember. She once had a straight spine and strong legs. Legs that rode a bicycle and climbed mountains. She met a man, fell in love, and survived the war years without him, writing and reading hundreds of letters that traveled for weeks to cross the […]