I was wearing my dark charcoal-colored suit at church Sunday and at one point as I reached my left arm across my chest I could feel a stiff piece of paper in the inside pocket of the jacket. I didn’t need to reach into the pocket to see what the strange weight over my heart [...]
Shifting the Sun When your father dies, say the Irish, you lose your umbrella against bad weather. May his sun be your light, say the Armenians. When your father dies, say the Welsh, you sink a foot deeper into the earth. May you inherit his light, say the Armenians. When your father dies, say the [...]
Turning Toward the Morning by Gordon Bok When the deer has bedded down And the bear has gone to ground, And the northern goose has wandered off To warmer bay and sound, It’s so easy in the cold to feel The darkness of the year And the heart is growing lonely For the morning Oh, [...]
What You Realize When Cancer Comes You will not live forever—No you will not, for a ceiling of clouds hovers in the sky. You are not as brave as you once thought. Sounds of death echo in your chest. You feel the bite of pain, the taste of it running through you. Following the telling [...]
A childhood memory: waking up in the pre-dawn winter hours to the muffled thrumming of my father’s car warming up in the driveway. In my mind I can picture the clouds of crystalline exhaust illuminated by the back porch light. I would lie snug in my bed and listen to the sounds of my father [...]
The day before Father’s Day this year I happened to be parked at the far pumps at a BP gas station and convenience store in Ottumwa, Iowa, filling up. As I squeegeed my windshield I heard a commotion behind me and turned to see a large pickup rock to a sudden stop in front of [...]
I unexpectedly found myself in a hospital emergency room last Wednesday. Of course, just about everyone who finds themselves in an emergency room does so unexpectedly since it’s not the type of event that typically makes it into your dayrunner. (“You want to get together at 10:00? Sorry, that’s no good for me – I’m [...]
