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Home Life Archives - Page 2 of 2 - All The Single Girlfriends

For Couples Only

Mar 21, 2011 by

For Couples Only

Disease is not an easy subject for people to chat about. Actually they avoid it at all costs. I always thought that after everything I had been through, I could always count on my girlfriends to lift me up when I was down. Not so, I learned that disease is kind of like divorce it separates you from certain folks. You know how divorce or a break-up causes groups of friends to feel an allegiance to the husband, wife or partner? Well guess what? Sometimes it happens when you lose someone due to death. Here I was feeling my absolute loneliest, eating poorly, and doing everything I could to be strong. I began to see a bereavement counselor to talk to someone – no one would talk to me about it. I blamed myself...

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What Do Cats Dream Of?

Mar 15, 2011 by

What Do Cats Dream Of?

This elderly little cat has lived with me since I was 25, before I was married.  To everyone’s surprise, she has outlived my husband and now she is a thin, gray creature with a touch of kitty dementia.  This is the cat who comforted him on the night before his death in the hospital, the one who played “home” with us in that tiny ICU cubicle.  This is the cat who was present when he died. Dave loved her and her image graces our shared headstone. That same image is tattooed on my left foot, a memorial to him, to her and to the life we shared.  I count my blessings that she is still with me, though I know she is in the winter of her life.  She snuggles under my arm now,...

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Two Widows .. Now Equals

Mar 14, 2011 by

Two Widows .. Now Equals

I sat by the stack of RSVP’s for the wedding in June that would not take place. I stared at them a good long while before I picked them up and brought them over to the couch and began to alphabetize them. Normally I am not this anal retentive but, I thought it’d be easier to find their phone numbers and email addresses in my address book. Slowly but surely I was done. Each card had a corresponding number or email address so I could begin contacting the folks who were kind enough to have responded early to the Save The Date and wedding invitations in the morning. Surprisingly a good number of them were from friends that lived out of town. I crashed on the couch embraced by the scent of him. I...

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Trading Nightmares For Dreams

Mar 4, 2011 by

Trading Nightmares For Dreams

I’m sitting on the couch on Friday morning.  A train whistles, telling tales of its journeys to places I’ve never been.  Mornings like this, Colorado reminds me of W. Virginia. Snow-clouds hang heavy over the city, obscuring the ever-present mountains. I must simply have faith that they are still there, still standing over us, watching and waiting forever.  I cannot see them now, but then that’s the nature of faith, isn’t it? I love this place.  I love that I can see the constellation of city lights from my kitchen windows.  I love how the steam from the nearby power plant clings together and stays close to home when the temperature dips below zero.  Sometimes that steam even turns to snow and falls right back down on us, as if to say, “Good or bad,...

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Sizzling Creativity .. Ouch!

Mar 1, 2011 by

Sizzling Creativity .. Ouch!

FEBRUARY 22, 2011 A Little Zap of the Brain Yields Fresh Insights * Research subjects who received electrical stimulation of the anterior temporal lobes of the brain were 3 times more likely to come up with the fresh insight needed to solve a difficult, unfamiliar problem than people in a control group, according to Richard Chi and Allan Snyder of the University of Sydney. The researchers say they envision a future when noninvasive brain stimulation is briefly employed for solving problems that have evaded traditional cognitive approaches.  Source: Facilitate Insight by Non-invasive Brain Stimulation Wow!  Shades of Young Frankenstein! According to a recent study forwarded by the Harvard Business Review , it seems Mother should not have yelled at my cousin and me all those years ago.  I was three and Tommy was barely...

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Waking Up On The Black Couch

Feb 27, 2011 by

Waking Up On The Black Couch

Returning home, the day’s events washed over me like a proper London rain. I was completely soaked in the wet energy of others, their grief and that of my own and could barely walk up the steps to our front door. Throughout the last hours I kept thinking to myself, ‘I have to get through this day, they have to know that they can count on me, be the rock, be the foundation, get this done.’ Upon entering our home, there was a deafening silence. It was so very quiet, void of all of the laughter and filled with the remnants of my rapid departure to the hospital the morning he had slipped from a coma into the beyond. In my haste to find a black outfit, that wasn’t a little black dress, but...

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My Spirit Was Broken But My Heart Was Singing...

Feb 19, 2011 by

My Spirit Was Broken But My Heart Was Singing

George’s mother was a complete wreck as the funeral continued her wails and sobs at the loss of her youngest of 7 children, her ‘happy accident’ as she called him because he was born in her early forties when women of her time were simply not able to have kids, was being laid to rest. She had buried the eldest of her children a boyish man when he was 17 when George was a mere toddler and her husband 3 years prior of the same cancer. I had the idea to play some of George’s favourite music gently in the background so that when people approached the casket that did not hear church music. Portishead and Massive Attack played as softly as trip-hop could possibly. As her screams and cries echoed in the packed...

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Kiss Me Like A Stranger

Feb 14, 2011 by

Kiss Me Like A Stranger

George – Chapter 1: That this will be read by complete strangers, people who I have not yet met or never, makes this missive seem almost therapeutic. I had come to Atlanta in 1992 to work as interpreter for an international law firm with a large Japanese client.  The assignment soon went from 3 weeks to almost 4 months. Over time I grew weary of law firm take-out food. While I was not vociferous, a young law student and runner for the firm took pity on the quiet French-Italian girl and directed me to the nearest French Bistro. It was a quaint place, small table, pseudo-bohemian students with a portrait of Miles Davis that nearly eclipsed a wall separating the bar from the main dining room. I sat facing it the right side of...

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Daddy’s On Facebook

Feb 12, 2011 by

Daddy’s On Facebook

My father turned 82 in January. He doesn’t really need anything, but I wanted to get his some kind of gift. I opted to give him his own Facebook page. Dad doesn’t use a computer, so I used my own PC to create him an account. First I created the Facebook account. Then I invited my siblings, nieces, nephews, and cousins to “friend” Dad. I also invited a few of Dad’s friends and former neighbors. Not many of his old friends are still living. Fortunately, he still stays in touch with his high school girlfriend and she happened to have a Facebook account. I had to call her on the phone to get her Facebook name because she goes by the name her grandchildren call her. Gramma Mimi is Dad’s oldest Facebook Friend, but...

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