Mutton, the best cat that has ever lived and will ever live died last night. (See A Cat Story). The vet handed his still-warm body back to me so that Gary and I could take him home for the last time. We cried and held hands during the six-mile ride. Once home, we pulled the [...]
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“They’re all dead,” he finally concluded with as much irritation as sadness in his voice.
I drove a couple more miles on the narrow blacktop in silence, passing another old farmhouse; sorry to let it go by without introduction. He spoke first.
“Guess they’re all dead now except Old Joe.”
My dad exaggerated a bit, [...]
Even after thirteen years without him, my brother can still sometimes bring me to tears. (See Saying Good-bye). I just found this photo taken of him in San Francisco in the mid seventies. He looks so healthy and happy on this day. Was he? I wonder who captured this moment [...]
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I thought of my great-Aunt Belle the other day while frying Spam. She spent all of her long life in the northeastern hills of Pennsylvania busily cooking, gardening, teaching, living. Starting when I was about six and continuing for the next seven years, I made an almost daily trek the half-mile [...]
Image by Nikki L.
Wandering through the antique shop aisles, I run my eyes over the glass cases filled with Eastern Star rings, tortoise shell hair combs, tarnished crosses, and pocket watches inscribed on the back with “Love Forever” and “Until the End of Time.” On the wall, a framed, hand-embroidered picture depicts a cozy living [...]
Image by Aunt Owwee
My eyes shift quickly to the left side of the road as I round the sharp curve, drawn to a boy dressed in hot orange, standing in stark contrast to the dull December browns of the Pennsylvania fields. Three more men flash by my window at sixty-yard intervals, each in orange garb [...]
Image by StarbuckGuy
“You should be calling your old friends,” my husband reminded me a couple of times in the days before we loaded up the Buick for a trip south to Fredericksburg. He was right, but procrastination, or maybe premonition, prevailed, and after seven hours on the road, we pulled into the Fredericksburg Hospitality House [...]
Image by Patrick Gage
In 1907, my great-grandma and her six young daughters departed from the western port of Glasgow, Scotland bound for the U.S. in the dirty, stinking, rocking, noisy, damp belly of the S.S. Columbia. Pinned inside her dress was enough money to deliver them all to Ohio where her husband anxiously waited. Unfortunately, [...]
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“Rats, I’ve really done it this time. Gary’s not going to believe this!” I started the long walk up the hill, imagining his reaction to my latest fiasco as I stared into the darkness ahead of me.
“You locked the key in the van when you stopped at the mailbox?” He asked. “Well, yeah, [...]
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“He just shot out of the back seat before we could catch him.” My mother-in-law apologized over and over again, as I fought back a wave of panic. “Why in the world didn’t they put him in the cat carrier,” I thought. Biting my tongue, I quickly told her not [...]
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