The Name on the Door

I thought of my mother often yesterday. It wasn’t a very productive day; it’s hard to get much done when you have a lump in your throat. Exactly one year ago, February 25, 2013, my sister and I looked on helplessly as our mom struggled to take her final breaths. It was if she embraced the words of poet Dylan Thomas: Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Watching somebody die is difficult, I’m not going to lie. People who say it is a beautiful experience weren’t in the same room […]

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The Toughest Woman I’ve Ever Known… My Mom

I’ve dreaded this day for a long time, the day I would say goodbye to Mom – to both my parents, actually.  Just 15 months ago I said my final farewell to Daddy. I now begin a new chapter in my life; it is going to be very different. My mother was the toughest person I have ever known, probably ever will. I lost count, but over the last year she had a least a dozen surgeries and was hospitalized or in the ER many, many times. You know you are spending too much time at the hospital when the parking attendants know your first name. Mom endured dialysis for her […]

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Aging is no Laughing Matter… Or IS It?

I turned 52 yesterday…yikes. I used to think people in their 50s were lame and already had one foot in the grave. Well, now I’m there and it happened in the blink of an eye. Fortunately, I’m nowhere near a cemetery (she says crossing her fingers) and I’m still pretty cool – in a middle age kind of way, that is. Admittedly, I don’t let my bra straps show, I don’t have any tattoos or piercings on my face, I prefer Aerosmith to Nicki Minaj, and my goblet holds a dry Chardonnay instead of Boone’s Farm Strawberry Hill, but I do have my contemporary moments. My kids tell me I’m […]

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