-
Go on Vacation
Last night, I had a vivid dream about Shawn. That happens less than it once did, so I’m always glad to be able to “feel” him when he appears in this way. In the dream, Shawn was sick. We both knew he was dying, and he was thinner than normal, but otherwise he was the same guy – funny, engaging and full-of-life. Of course, that’s how he was even as he was dying, so it’s not strange that I remember him this way. In the dream, we were sitting on the beach in lounge chairs, watching the waves crash on the shore. We drank pina coladas and talked about an…
-
So Close. And Yet So Far Away.
Right after Shawn died, I boxed up a number of his shirts, certain that I’d do something meaningful with them. I never did. Even after I cleaned out his side of the closet and added even more clothes to the box, I felt paralyzed about what to do. Then, out of nowhere, an old friend from high school contacted me to volunteer to make a quilt out of his old shirts. I took her up on it, shipped her the clothes and forgot about it. It took a few months, but early this fall, I got the final product. It literally took my breath away. There were his shirts, all…
-
Our 15th Wedding Anniversary
Shawn used to play an acoustic version of Ice Ice Baby on his guitar. He didn’t do it much after we had kids but when we were in our 20s and I’d egg him on at parties, he’d whip out his guitar and start with this: All right stopCollaborate and listenIce is back with my brand new inventionSomething grabs a hold of me tightlyThen I flow that a harpoon daily and nightlyWill it ever stop?Yo, I don’t knowTurn off the lights and I’ll glow He’d always sing the whole thing, but what made it so hilarious was his intonation and the fact that he pretended to take it really seriously.…
-
Claire’s New Email Address
Claire has known about email for a long time, but it was only recently that she discovered that some of her friends have their own email addresses. “Mom!” she said excitedly one day last week, “all of my friends have email addresses and I need one too!” I’d waited a long time for this. Actually, Shawn was the one who had looked forward to setting up Claire with an email account when she was old enough for one. In fact, when she was only a few months old, he told me he had secured an email address for her. I remembered the email address. But I couldn’t remember the password.…
There’s No Handbook for How to Do This
