by Jean | Feb 20, 2017 | Uncategorized
Before the list of ingredients on every cereal box was a memento mori, those boxes were magic. You got a prize just for tearing the flap—a terrarium or a packet of Nestlé Quik (more sugar!) or even a crisp dollar bill. Best of all was a magic ring in a clear, crinkly...
by Jean | Oct 6, 2015 | Uncategorized
The library book she read a year ago said Victorians took photos of their dead. They dressed them up, arranged them on beds or chairs, made a head tilt or an arm curve. Then they coaxed their eyes open, had them look into the big black camera on the three-legged...
by Jean | May 20, 2015 | Uncategorized
One Christmas, when I was about seven, I bought my mother a plastic lily from Woolworth’s. My little plastic change purse tight in my hand, I had shopped the store with great care. When I got the lily home, I had to bend its long stem into a circle to make it fit into...
by Jean | Apr 8, 2015 | Uncategorized
When my husband and I moved into our little house on our quiet street almost twenty years ago, we were new to the neighborhood. It wasn’t long, however, before Ray, who lived a couple of houses down and across, wheeled his elderly mother over to welcome us....
by Jean | Mar 17, 2015 | Uncategorized
The opportunity to question the dead may come only in our dreams, and many will say that even then we are simply talking to ourselves. Still, if one night I were to encounter my father and could ask only one question, I might ask what it was like to die. If I had...
by Jean | Feb 19, 2015 | Uncategorized
One afternoon not too long ago, I threw in the towel on the dismal day and threw on my Double Bubble-pink fleece bathrobe, a Christmas gift from my daughter some years back. When I settled into the big blue chair with a book, my husband said, “That’s your...
