grief

Something about age eight

Last evening after supper, I was alone in the house putting away clean dishes, thinking. Grandma was outside on the patio watching Jeff and the boys toss the football around the backyard. I was drying things and putting them in their places, then loading the dirty supper dishes in the dishwasher, starting to fill it

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Violence then, violence now

While I was doing some housecleaning yesterday and listening to Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky, a number of things I’ve recently seen and heard started swirling through my head, and spinning themselves together. I wish I had time to write a proper essay, but I’m afraid it might have more in common with a

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A video tribute to Papa

Jeff and I posted our first YouTube video last night. I did most of the prep work, loading and editing digital photos and scanning older pictures. Jeff selected the photos and arranged them, basically in chronological order, and chose the song that’s playing in the background, “I Find Your Love” by Beth Nielsen Chapman. I

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Cheated

Last Thursday evening was the third grade music program at school, so our family went to watch Kyle do his thing, and Sue rode with us. It was hard, as everything these days is hard, but we seemed to be doing okay, clapping and smiling, and even chuckling at some of the more amusing parts.

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Voices in my head, these days

It has been two weeks since Gerald passed away. We are meeting with his doctor later this afternoon to hear more about the results of blood tests taken in the emergency room, and any other information from the hospital records that might help us understand how he became so sick so very fast. The first

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How long do you hope for a miracle?

That was a question I asked Jeff in the Intensive Care family waiting room on Friday, September 19, 2008. My father-in-law’s condition was not improving. He was on a ventilator, and hadn’t taken a breath on his own since about 6am that day, when he’d collapsed at home. His kidney had stopped working, his lungs

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When you gonna love you… ?

A couple of co-workers of mine spent all day today at the library annex, instead of coming back to the headquarters building in the afternoon. They were getting a lot accomplished, so figured they’d keep on the rest of the day. I was thinking about this on the way to Wal-Mart this evening, and I

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Memorial

In the interest of providing a quick update on what’s been going on with our family this past month or so, I’m re-posting a couple of blogs that I first posted on MySpace. This is a short one, posted on April 21, 2008. Jeff is driving the boys to school, and I may have five

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