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Aging, Being young, Bridget Jones, Broagh, Castledawson, Diary, Family, FInal wishes, Loss, Love, Marriage, Ordinary Things, Personal Helicon, Poetry, Regrets, saying goodbye, Soundtracks of our Lives, Those Winter Sundays, Writing
the offices of love ~ what did I know?
This winter Sunday, I woke to the high-pitched scrape of steel on steel, my da sharpening my bread knife because “it wouldn’t cut butter.” I stayed in bed, allowing the long metallic strokes on each side of the blade to carry me back to the kitchen of my childhood, my father making sure the knife was sharp enough to carve the Sunday roast or the Christmas turkey. Like changing a tire or wiring a plug, it is something he has always thought I should know how to do. Regarding the honing of the bread-knife, he says I need only exert the same pressure on each side of it and then …
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Birthdays, Castledawson, Dying, Family, Funerals, Loss, Love, Marriage, Memoir, Northern Ireland, Poetry, Thanksgiving, Themes of Childhood, Tommy Edwards, W.H. Auden, Wedding Anniversary
not half thankful enough ~ thanksgiving with funeral blues
A friend, one who knows, told me the other day that it will take at least a year before the sharp stone of grief will shift from the very center of my being. She told me not to make any big decisions until I make it through all the “firsts” – the first Thanksgiving without him, Sophie’s first birthday without her dad, Christmas and decorating the tree, New Year’s Eve and not-quite-legal fireworks at the end of our street, Valentine’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day, Easter, my birthday, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, the Fourth of July and fireworks over Morro Bay, summer vacation (will I ever be able to face Morro…
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Arizona, Awesome Women, Books, Bridget Jones, Death and dying, Door into the Dark, Family, FInal wishes, Friendship, Grieving, Helen Fielding, Marriage, Memoir, Mourning, Northern Ireland, Ordinary Things, Poetry, saying goodbye, Seamus Heaney, The Devil Wears Prada, The Midnight Anvil, Wedding Anniversary, Wendy Cope, widowed
newly widowed ~ instructions not included
They tell me I am in a state of shock and to take one day at a time. They tell me he is in a far better place now. Really? How could any place be better than in our dining room next month to light sixteen candles on my daughter's birthday cake or in the audience to cheer our girl as she walks across the stage to receive her high school diploma less than two years from now? How could any place be better than a ring-side seat at all those milestones that bring pure and simple pleasure?
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BC Action, Breast Cancer Advocacy, Breast Cancer Awareness, Breast Cancer Awareness Month, Breast cancer walks, Culture of breast cancer, Early Detection, Mammograms, Pink Ribbons, Pinkwashing, Profiting from breast cancer, Susan G Komen Foundation
what, no cure? we’ll always have october . . .
Time to remove the pink ribbons from our lapels and gorge ourselves with Halloween candy. Tomorrow, when November comes, our grocery stores will turn from pink to the amber hues of Thanksgiving, and before we know it, we’ll be decorating Christmas trees, in the spirit of goodwill to all men. Tomorrow on November 1st, after an interminable month of pink ribbons and races, I will still have breast cancer. I haven’t made the five-year mark yet so we can’t say it’s in remission, and in spite of all the stories we hear about women who have been “cured,” the fact is that breast cancer may recur at any time. Long term…
