“How Do We Forgive Our Fathers?” * Dick Lourie
My father was a drinker. My father could be a Fucking Bastard. ****** There I said it. I need to tell the whole truth if I am going to tell any of it. ******* My father was not a drunk like my mom; He...
View ArticleThis Moment is mine and I will NEVER fucking hand it over to booze
********* I am on a BlogCation. I am enjoying spending time with my son and tending to my garden. I may be on a BlogCation, that does not mean, by any stretch of the imagination, that I am on a...
View ArticleThe Silence Ripe With Openness
************ Summer is not what it used to be. The long days in the garden with my boy, the walks to the park and the wandering through the Zoo are all gone. We have reached a New Place: Change. My...
View ArticleWould I Be Dead?
I am making my way back. Soon. I am using these last days of Summer to good advantage. Converse, the Creek and my Kid. Life is good. and I am not dead. ****************** I just wanted to touch on...
View ArticleWe Walk Around the Ruin
**** As a child I was obsessed with NOT stepping on cracks “Step on a crack, break your mother’s back” rang in my ears. Decades later I came to understand that my compulsion was just that; I had OCD...
View ArticleGoing ,Going, Gone * A Year Ago Tomorrow
A year ago today Mommy was alive. A year ago tomorrow she was not. It seems that somehow a year should be enough time to come to terms with the loss of a parent. It seems somehow that I should be, I...
View ArticleI Will Open My Heart And I Will Try
We took my mother to Mexico for her 60th birthday. My son was just one and toddling. I saw my mother smile in Mexico. I watched my mother hold my fathers hands as we wandered the old cobblestone path...
View ArticleOur Hearts Use Code
The anniversary of Ace’s suicide came and went. Sounds so easy. Slides off the tongue, right? We made it through, this time, 8 years later, we honored the day with a trip to the Land; the Family Farm...
View ArticleRIP * My Name is Roger, and I’m an alcoholic
RIP Roger Ebert Here is an article he wrote about his journey to sobriety. I will post Poetry tonight. I could not let this day pass without honoring this great man. This blog is about my mothers...
View Article“I Measure Every Grief I Meet” * My God Delivers
Two cards arrive the same day: one letting me know my aunt died 4 months ago, the other celebrating the life of a baby about to be born. Balance. I am thinking of the many definitions of Family and...
View ArticleGrief is a beast and Resentment its worst bedfellow
Two years ago November 30th, my Mother left this world. I held my heart still and quiet as the days approached, wanting to be present, to remember whatever it was that would come to mind. I am trying...
View Article“…No Loss is Token”
8 years ago today at 10:00 at night I received a call from my mother. “I have the most awful news. Dad is dead.” The next day I sat in the living room of my parents home 12 hours away from mine. The...
View ArticleThe Monkey Always Wins
Word came hard today. A friend was found dead. A murder investigation is underway. She was of some other world: wild, free and without filters. She was a good woman With a monkey, or a dozen, on her...
View ArticleThe Hard Truth and Those that Tell It
I love Poetry. I love Poetry Month. I also have a story to tell and this blog has been both canvas and therapy. I stopped. I stopped telling the story of my mother’s life and her death and her...
View Article“How Poetry Can Help People with Dementia”
My mother’s road through Wernicke-Korsakoff, alcoholics dementia, was a long and tangled one. I cared for her for years. As the dementia took over it became harder and harder for me to hold it all...
View Article“My people have a hard time giving up”
I often hear other writers critiquing those of us who write about alcoholism or addiction. I hear words like, ‘distanced’ or ”reserved’ as though the writer could not capture in words their own...
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