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Minnie: Rest In Peace, Mom

In the second week of hospitalization my mother’s denial abruptly stops. I see a deliberate motion away from life, an about-face toward death, with a new-found dignity and acceptance.

Selected Poems

Sunbeams

The family is a good institution because it is uncongenial. The men and women who, for good reasons and bad, revolt against the family, are, for good reasons and bad, revolting against mankind. Aunt Elizabeth is unreasonable, like mankind. Papa is excitable, like mankind. Our younger brother is mischievous, like mankind. Grandpapa is stupid, like the world; he is old, like the world.

G.K. Chesterton

God Bless The Child

Compassion filled the car with a tangible presence. He was dying; but it seemed to me they had all come to terms with it. All three of them had accepted the inevitable, and each moment together was precious. Neither I nor my saxophone would be forgotten.

Krishnamurti Remembered

Two People Taking Shelter In The Rain | From The Writings Of Krishnamurti

Two People Taking Shelter In The Rain | To live in truth is to live in the moment, to be dynamically in step with it without gathering in the residue which he calls time — thought, memory, the past — and equates with falsehood.

From The Writings Of Krishnamurti | Freedom is not a reaction; freedom is not choice. It is man’s pretense that because he has choice he is free. Freedom is pure observation without direction, without fear of punishment and reward.

Glory Days

Pennies From Grandma

I’ve been passing pennies on the sidewalk. There seem to be a lot, as if I’m not the only one who doesn’t bother anymore to lean down and pick them up. After all, what good’s a penny anymore? It’s enough to buy a memory. Every time I see one I think of my Grandma Bralley.

Life And Death

A cold rain beat on the canopy over the grave site. John pulled down the brim of the walking hat she’d gotten him on their ramblings through Ireland. Just before he stepped under the canopy, he glanced up at the sky and recalled when his father had died.

Regrets

A book from childhood, a rainbow, a Grateful Dead show

The Love Story

We swore to do it till death do us part and neither of us crossed our fingers. That, in itself, was rather a miracle. We were hardly speaking at the time. “I will” was a long conversation.