Widow's Voice

A Brief Update

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Refreshed and back home after a journey with Lola to the north country to visit our old friends, I’ve taken a few days to get back into the swing of things.  After eating too much and taking some serious time to relax, I’ve been slower than I’d hoped to ramp up my exercise schedule.  However, the sad truth is that these days, I deal with various aches and pains as I try to return to form. My upcoming calendar is full of doctor appointments, vision tests, and blood tests through December. And I need to schedule my annual immunizations.  All in all, I am learning it is a bitch getting old.

As before, I start my day by perusing the news. When I was younger, the first newspaper section I would plunge into was the sports section. I still enjoy sports, perhaps not as enthusiastically as I did as a young man. Now, I start with the hard news, which I find repetitive from day to day and, sadly, so depressing that I often get tired and feel downtrodden from the effort.  Sometimes I’m forced to close my eyes and doze for a bit.

It’s probably age-related, but today my favorite stories often involve health and wellness issues.  Then, of course, I enjoy travel pieces, too. Except for articles foretelling imminent economic collapse or that directly touch upon my dollars and cents, I don’t pay much attention to business or financial news, especially since I’m no longer working gainfully.

I have had a lifelong interest in the sciences, which I’m glad to report hasn’t abated with age.  These days, I’m a sucker for stories about AI, especially doom-and-gloom scenarios that might have been imagined by the prophet James Cameron.

In fact, I’ve been doing a deep dive into the subject with the notion of producing fiction about this mind-bending phenomenon.  When I do, I’ll let you know here.

Meanwhile, I recently started writing a blog on Substack.  Although it’s currently limited to sports pieces as I try to build an audience, my vision is to eventually write on various topics (and in various styles).

As much as I have enjoyed contributing to this site for nearly the past six years, it imposes constraints.   Again, I’ll let you know as I progress on these new projects.

Meanwhile, you can still find me here.  It’s good to be back.

About Gary Ravitz

In relevant part, my musings are for me. It’s one of the ways in which I process losing my sweetest. Of course, Lee didn’t want to die. She had fought like hell, but the relentless cancers kept coming: Skin cancers; breast cancer; head and neck cancer; colon cancer; and finally, the deadly pancreatic cancer. In June 2020, and only after being pressed hard by Lee, her oncologist opined that my wife had from two weeks to two months left to live, turned on her heels and nearly sprinted from the hospital room, never again to be seen or heard from by us. I promptly removed Lee from the hospital and brought her home. It was the right thing to do and I only wish I had acted sooner over “the best” medical advice to the contrary. In fact, my sweet wife only had nine days left to live. At the final, she embraced her own death with great courage and unfailing kindness. It was a truly remarkable display of grace and wondrous to behold. It was my great privilege and honor to be with her every step of the way. And now, it’s my privilege to be able to write a few words to you each week. In a nutshell, I believe every journey is unique, but, hopefully, to know that you do not have to walk it alone can also be reassuring. And, along the way, you might hear a bit more information about me.
Gary