A long time ago I decided I would never be upset if I couldn’t do something super special ON my actual birthday. Oddly enough, Mario and I were kind of on the same page with that, but he was even worse in that he didn’t like to celebrate his birthday at all. In hindsight, as […]
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Paean to a Pup
I recently saw an article in the New York Times that posed a provocative question: whether dogs help people live longer? Dogs are rightly counted among Man’s best friends, yet, despite citing research suggesting that owning a dog can make us healthier, this article left me unconvinced of its teased central premise. I have limited […]
Hi, My Name is Liliana…
THE MORNING I WALKED INTO A GRIEF SUPPORT GROUP I sat there, in my car, for what felt like an eternity. It was a cold, overcast Thursday morning in mid-February 2024, just like in the movies. I drove one hour to a city in Virginia to attend a Loss of Spouse Grief Share support Group, […]
Reminiscing … amongst the guilt and the quiet
2025 was a hard year. Really hard. Started that year with my own health scare while Jim’s issues began to escalate. So many doctors, scans, xrays, labs for both of us. Things changed drastically for Jim in May and then I got shingles (but I did get good news on my scare, so that was […]
Fever Nights
Wow, last week was ROUGH. When I wrote on Monday about being sick, I had no idea what I was in for. I was down for seven days with a fever of 102 I couldn’t keep under control and exhaustion. Every night, I woke up every hour or two either chilled to the bone or […]
Learning About Moving Forward from The Gilmore Girls
I love the Gilmore Girls, which originally aired from 2000 – 2007, then was revived by Netflix in a 4 episode series in 2016. The revived episodes follows the current lives of the 3 main characters (daughter, mother, and grandmother) 9 years after the original series ended. I loved most of the revived episodes. I […]
Embracing My Inner Outlier
Tomorrow begins the first day of the month that contains the first day of spring. For those in the Northeast and elsewhere, spring can’t come too soon. Even here, in Northeast Florida, we’ve endured extreme cold for this region killing off plants and trees that usually withstand milder winter temps. As I thaw, I’m also […]
The Grass Still Grows
Mario absolutely hated yard work of any sort. He’s always said he hated it because he was “forced” to do it when he was younger. He was also just incredibly lazy when it came to manual labor. When we bought the house, the previous owner left what was, at the time, a practically new John […]
A Visit With Two Old Friends
On Sunday, I drove Robyn to the airport, then immediately went home to clean the place in anticipation of Craig and Donna’s expected arrival the following day. No rest for the wicked! Craig and Donna are two of my closest friends. I first met them as a young lawyer shortly after I had accepted a […]
Same heart. New chapter.
On June 30, 2021, I hit “publish” with equal parts excitement and nerves. Today, I’m hitting it one last time — with a full heart. Keeping my promise to write here each Wednesday created a map of my path through grief. Nearly five years of questions, lessons, fears, laughter—feeling lost more times than I […]
I have a list ….
It was another 3:33 wake up morning but this one did not bring me a smile. Instead I was greeted with sneezing, coughing, runny nose, headache – and once up and fully awake – ugh, zero energy and a bit woozy. I think it’s just a cold and it will pass but I had […]
Sick and Tired
The last two days I’ve been sick and tired, literally. We had a busy Friday and Saturday night, and I thought I was just sore from the weekend. Then I noticed it felt like my skin hurt. That first sign your getting sick before the real symptoms set in, leaving you question if it’s real […]