Category: Uncategorized

The story on the front page of this morning’s paper, “Loneliness darkens twilight years,” made my blood run cold.  The photo gave me the chills.

Photo: Mike de Sisti, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

The essence of the article is that loneliness increases the chances of early death by 45%. This, compared to alcohol (30%) and obesity (20%).

Audrey Brennan, the woman in the photo, is 86. Until a few years ago, she lived in her own house, drove a minivan, went with her friends to lunch and the theater, had a life that involved moving and driving, going and seeing, chatting and listening. The life she had sounds like fun. It was, at the very least, a life of her own design.

So then she went out to get the morning paper one day, slipped on a patch of ice and broke her hip. Boom. Her entire life pretty much evaporated…

When I was younger, I used to daydream about Prince.  I would imagine what it would be like to be at one of the legendary parties at his mansion.  These were your typical lame-ass young girl fantasies.  Prince would come trotting out in his stilettos like the sexy little satyr that he was and he would play guitar for us.  Perhaps our eyes would meet for one magical moment.

But then I grew up, and I got a newsflash courtesy of Cold Hard Reality:  I would never actually go to one of Prince’s parties.  It just wouldn’t happen, in the same way that I would never date that old school crush or become a good dancer.  It wasn’t a painful realization, as by then my life had turned out to be far more unpredictable and meaningful than any celebrity fantasy could be.

The problem is, I live in a nation…

I have no idea where this story starts– only Emily could tell you that, and she has been silent for years now.  I can’t fill in all the details, but I can tell you when her shadow crossed over our doorstep.

It was a fine and cozy doorstep in Ripon, North Yorkshire, England,  and it was our home for four fantastic years.  We dove headlong into the spirit of British life and tried to pretend that we were Brits ourselves.

We fooled no one, but we had a good time.  The kids attended British schools, my husband and I drove on the left side of the road (more often than not), and I learned how to make a mean steak and ale pie and sticky toffee pudding.

When we returned to the States in the summer of 2009, there was a posh lilt to my children’s speech, a cupboard full of…

I woke up twenty times last night and each time I thought the same thought. Their mothers must still be shrieking. Shrieking and keening. Making sounds they never heard themselves make. That’s what the Sandy Hook mothers are doing, I know it. And then I’d fall back asleep only to wake again with the same thought. All night until the grey light of this rainy Saturday signaled time to get up, make coffee, and read the paper where the first paragraph of the article about the Sandy Hook School shootings was in extra large font, probably the same they used on 9/11. A picture of a man looking to the heavens only made me wonder about the murdered children’s moms.

Most women will tell you that there have been times in their lives when they hid in the shower to shriek and keen, to sob and cry out, and to…