`Who is a senior?" My daughter e-mails this question and I read the words and think, "I don't know." Who is a senior? Not Kate. She's in college. And not Ellie. She's a freshman. Is this a trick? A test? Why is she asking me about seniors?
I e-mail her back a big question mark.
Read MoreIt's easy to believe in Easter morning, with its message of resurrection and eternal life, when the mortal life we're living is comfortable and good. When our children are tucked in their beds, safe and well. When our husband is well, too, and our mother and father and sisters and brothers; when everyone we care about is reachable, by plane or by train or by phone.
It's easy to believe in Easter morning when death is confined to newspaper headlines and illness is only a setback, not incurable. When cemeteries and chronic care facilities are not where we go every day. When it's Jesus on the cross, not our son, our mother, our daughter.
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After I read "Still Alice" I wanted to stand up and tell a train full of strangers, "You have to get this book." I'd taken it with me to New York along with the newest Stephen King, which I was smack in the middle of - a thriller, a potboiler, a "please, please, please don't talk to me now" book. And I was looking forward to three and a half hours of uninterrupted reading time. I settled into my seat, but…
Read MoreI was an only child who wanted just one thing. A brother. A sister. A baby in the house. I wished for this my whole childhood, on every first star, on every dandelion gone to seed, on every wishbone, on every word spoken in unison with someone else, and on my birthday every year when I blew out the candles on my cake…
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Rebirth, everywhere. Across the street and down the street. In my front yard and just beyond my backyard. In the ground and above the ground.
Al, my neighbor across the street whose heart stopped beating 230 days ago, turned 80 last Friday. Lazarus, I call him. And he smiles and shakes his head in wonderment and gratitude and turns to his wife, Katherine, and she smiles, too.
Read MoreHe calls it the Walka-Walka mall and we don’t correct him because walk is what Adam does at this mall. Small to us, it is huge to a 4-year-old, a sprawling place with store after store. Plus, we like that he says "Walka-Walka." We smile at his innocence. He’ll hear "Walpole mall" soon enough and Walka-Walka, like all the little-kid…
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