“How much longer until I can just die?” my father asks.

Ironically, he doesn’t know he’s actually dying—slogging through death’s stages, step, by excruciating step.  No one tells him that his life is ending.  He is suffering from late stage dementia/… Read full post »

A nosedive at 30,000 feet was the last thing I expected.

I always relish the alone time when I'm flying.  I lose myself in magazines and movies and random converations with strangers.  I enjoy the smell of peanuts, the safety demonstration, even the sound of the seat belt sign. &nbs… Read full post »

Picture this:

You have a son, a beautiful boy with sapphire eyes, a contagious smile, a crown of blond curls. It is his birthday. On the cake there are four candles and the little boy makes a silent wish:

Don't go.

Do you remember?

Of course this boy is too… Read full post »

Back in the days when Scott was trying to sell me on moving from New York to Seattle, he’d drive me around in his shiny black jeep looking for rainbows.

He drove patiently, his seat so far back that he was almost horizontal, searching the blackened sky for hints of color. Fleeting bea… Read full post »

 Two weeks before my father died he made a last request:  Beer.  It caught me by surprise; I had been busy preparing his nightly dose of crushed meds in applesauce. 

"What did you say, dad?" I said, while gently shoving trazadone/klonopin/ativan/ laced applesauce into one corner o… Read full post »

My father says, “I don’t know why they keep putting me in these leather pants.”

Of course he isn’t wearing leather pants, he is wearing his Levis, and the same pair he’s worn since The Great Depression, but that doesn’t matter. 

I play along because it&… Read full post »