My sister subscribes to a lot of magazines – every thing from glossy fashion to cutting edge innovations. One of them is a woman’s mag our mom used to subscribe to and it has monthly contests. One of the contests asks readers to submit responses to a question for a chance to win a bag full of cool stuff – not just a bag, but a designer purse or weekend traveller and full of things Read more
Today is the first day of the Lunar New Year – Year of the Dragon. I am one quarter Chinese, probably more than half black but there’s a world of bloodlines in my family – including Scottish, Portuguese and Jewish, so all the measurements are suspect. It’s always been easiest to just say I’m Jamaican. Occasionally someone wants to know what my genetic mix is. I’m a curious individual myself so I”m not bothered by Read more
He’s shuffling down the street with that side to side list kids get when they ‘re cocooned in down – snow pants, parka and heavy soled water proof boots. And he’s bawling. The nylon snow pants keep up the swish swish rhythm under his open mouth sobs. I’m walking nephew No. 2 back from karate class and he’s upset because he doesn’t want to go back to the daycare, he wants to go home. But Read more
I hate feeling stuck – stuck in traffic, stuck in the check out line that doesn’t move, or stuck in the subway between stations. The worst is feeling stuck in your own life. It sucks. I particularly hate the ‘you suck’ voice that becomes the interior soundtrack of my stuck brain. Well if you don’t like what’s on, change the channel. A southern gentleman with a penchant for coveralls said that Read more
I’m no statistician but for each death there is a birth. That has been my experience. Within six months of my mother’s death my sister gave birth to nephew No.2. That sounds like pretty limited experience but there are other examples, the most recent ones striking a cord. Last week I met a friend’s newborn daughter. Newborns don’t do much, and yet we’re easily enthralled as they discover light and sound and being. We rediscover Read more
Brevity is not my strong suit. If it can be said in ten words or less I will masterfully find a way to express it in forty. It’s a gift. But there is one arena where I am skillfully succinct – sharing my condolences. It is easy to express myself with other bereaved. There is an innate shorthand to grief, a language immediately recognized and understood by anyone who has suffered the loss of a Read more
My bank offered me a line of credit last week. There was a small questionnaire that’s usually a minor formality but because I answer yes that someone in my family had been diagnosed with cancer before the age of sixty a follow-up interview was necessary. And so we begin. Last Doctor’s visit? A year ago. What was the reason? Just a routine check up. Any tests taken? Just regular blood tests. I continue to give her my medical Read more
I figured out eventually that it’s not the death and dying, its the absence of the living. Absence being the key. The death and dying part are but a moment, it’s the after part that throws your world upside down and inside out. The absence of that person, once so vital to your life, becomes the new reality. I never fully got over my obsession with seeing a dead body. Luckily my mother was not Read more