Welcome (Back) to the Old Pueblo
“You’ll be back,” Luke said, taking a drag of his cigarette. “Everyone always comes back.” We were sitting outside at Cafe Paraiso on University Boulevard. It was the first week of May in Tuscon, which meant it was easily 90 degrees, even in the afternoon shade of our table’s...
The Shape of Grief
For months, I have been trying to feel the shape of my grief. The experience of losing my Aunt Terry reminded me a lot of losing my father. And not just because I thought of her as my mother. In both instances, there was the phone call I...
When You’ve Gotta Go
The nightmares always begin as dreams: I am out at a party, I am out grocery shopping, I am wandering around a familiar-seeming large house, I am at the Bally’s gym in Mesa, AZ I used to go to with my parents in the 1990s. Pedestrian nighttime musings...
Let It Snow
We are waiting for it to snow today. Weather forecasts raised the alarm nearly a week ago that we should be expecting five to eight inches of snow. Five to eight inches is not an impossible amount for Columbus: the winters routinely include several inches of the fluffy white...
Reflections
At the end of every June, the firm I work for has a conference. Everyone from the firm is invited to get together in one place. The timing of the conference coincides with annual promotion season and a large part of the conference is dedicated to announcing and celebrating...
Know Hanukkah, No Christmas?
My first memory of Hanukkah was when I was seven years old and my father was invited to come and teach the kids in my third grade elementary school class about Hanukkah. I have no clue whose idea this was. My parents were not ones to be involved in...
A Memorial, An Anniversary, A Birthday, and a Wedding Part III: Be Not Afraid
As I turned our car down a pebbled road in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, I knew we had made it to the right wedding when I saw a white horse pulling a carriage with the wedded couple to be up the path in front of us. Shanna, the bride and a...
A Memorial, An Anniversary, A Birthday, and a Wedding Part II: Beer on the Tracks
“I figured out what I am getting Basil for an anniversary gift!” I was talking to Aunt Terry on car speakerphone as I drove through farmland somewhere in Ohio, on my way to Columbus after a week onsite at a client for work. It was early September: I scanned...
A Memorial, An Anniversary, A Birthday, and a Wedding Part I: The Funeral Director
“So what type of service did you have in mind?” It was 4 pm on the first Friday in October. I was sitting at small table in Cheektowaga, NY, being questioned by Ed, a funeral director. He was a tall, thin, bespectacled man in his late 60s. Basil was...
For Aunt Terry
The following is the eulogy I delivered at our beloved Aunt Terry’s memorial on October 20, 2018. One of my first memories of Aunt Terry is when she invited me to attend a period of the elementary math class she taught. I was seven years old. My parents, my...