Personal

Every year about this time my wife gets weepy over “family,” those distant ones in Iowa (now Minnesota), Georgia, or wherever. Location doesn’t matter except that we aren’t there and weren’t expected anyway, distance being what it is. She remembers Thanksgivings in Ottumwa, Des Moines, or Muscatine with piles of food, the special china, journeys, [...]

We almost put her down on Friday. That was really hard. The vet had to give us the proverbial “minute to yourselves” three times before we said we’d take her home for the weekend to say goodbye and bring her in on Monday. I just couldn’t face deciding then and there and driving back with [...]

Three or four years ago I thought I was dying. Just walking up the driveway took away my breath. I’d wake up at 3:00 a.m. unable to breathe unless I got up and walked around until I felt stable enough to google all the horrible shit that might be wrong with me. Bought an oximeter [...]

We found them after we locked her up and I could poke around the doublewide, two silver-looking rings with diamonds. There was money, too, stuck back in her bathroom closet. Actually I think my sister found them. (I recollect we divvied up some Benjamins.) A few years ago I had the rings appraised—now there’s a [...]