As a child, I didn’t hear the word “happy” mentioned much—my father had TB and was in and out of sanitoriums, my mother cleaned houses and managed a boardinghouse, and we were on welfare —for which we were grateful, but it was not much to be happy about. When I got married at 21, I thought I was happy. Looking back, it was more mental than emotional…more like what I was supposed to feel on one’s Wedding Day. It wasn’t until much later, in my early thirties, with two kids, ear

Before Richard died last summer, I was just me. Now, almost a year later, I’m a combination of him and me. Richard no longer is alive, but he still lives in me. Not every minute of every day, but often enough for me to know that he still is a part of me. So that I could tell him that cousin Terry died the day after he did, our grandson had gotten his Phd; that Robert Redford and Diane Keaton had died; that I had a stomach virus, or how terribly angry I continue to be with Tru

Several weeks ago, as I was walking along Broadway, I met a neighborhood acquaintance, a single woman in her late sixties. I hadn’t seen her in a while and she asked how I was doing, since Richard had passed last summer. “Okay,” I told her, “it’s such a relief knowing he’s without pain.” “I don’t know how you did it,” she said. “I could never have managed caring for my father at home in his final years. It’s such an intimate experience”. “Yes, it is,” I agreed, “but it’s diff

Three of my grandchildren graduated from college in five days: On May 6, Lu (they/them/their), 22 years old, got their Master’s in Public Health from Temple University; on May 8, Natalie, 29, defended her PhD in Computer Science at the University of Pennsylvania, and on May 9, Sophie, 21, received her BA from the School of Design at Syracuse University. Graduating from Temple, Lu looked as radiant and happy as I’ve ever seen them. The graduation ceremony included a very diver