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Belfast, Crafts, Family, Fathers and sons, Happy Father's Day, Memoir, Memoir, Northern Ireland, Ordinary Things, Poetry, Seamus Heaney, Social Media, Soundtracks of our Lives, Themes of Childhood
inarticulate speech of the heart – on father’s day
This will not be a happy Father’s Day for my father. From far away, he will worry about my daughter and me and how we are doing on this, my daughter’s first Father’s Day without her dad. He’ll wish he could be in Phoenix, to fix things for us, to paint the laundry room or clean the windows or mix cement to…
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Antrim, Belfast, Belfast Peace Lines, bombing, British Army, Bruce Springsteen, Castledawson, Good Vibrations, IRA, Joe Strummer, La Mon House Hotel Bombing, Memoir, Mix tapes, Movies, Music, Northern Ireland, Omagh, Pop-in Records, Record Shops, Regrets, Sectarianism, Sherman Alexie, Terri Hooley, The Clash, The Miami Showband, The Troubles, The Undertones, Themes of childhood, UVF, Vinyl Records
for the record . . .
Dedicated to the legendary Terri Hooley . . . I rarely watch movies when I’m flying, but on the plane from Chicago to Dublin two Novembers ago, perusing my options for in-flight entertainment, I paused when I heard the unmistakable hiss that comes after a stylus is dropped right in the groove, and a Northern Ireland accent infused with Woodbine cigarettes: “Once upon a time in the city…
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Awesome Women, Being young, Coming of age, Death and dying, Great Advice, Great teachers, Loss, Maya Angelou, Memoir, Mother Daughter Relationship, saying goodbye
for she existed ~ thank you, Maya Angelou
And when great souls die, after a period peace blooms, slowly and always irregularly. Spaces fill with a kind of soothing electric vibration. Our senses, restored, never to be the same, whisper to us. They existed. They existed. We can be. Be and be better. For they existed. ~ from When Great Trees Fall by MAYA ANGELOU (1928 -2014) I…
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After death of a spouse, Animals, Arizona Humane Society, Best friends, Dog Rescue, Dogs, Friendship, Love, Mary Oliver, Memoir, Mother Daughter Relationship, Rites of passage, Themes of Childhood, Van Morrison
dog days ~ an emotional rescue
Sometimes in the early hours of the morning, when I am contemplating all that has happened in the past couple of years, I find myself wanting to be reassured that as his fragile heart stopped working, Ken's last interaction on this earth was tender, with three pounds of unconditional love curled up like a comma on his chest.
