Archive for May 2024
Scenes from a Waiting Room:
I want more friends, but I can’t find my people. March 13, 2024, 6 p.m. Day 947 of Our Discontent Emergency Room Waiting Room UNC Chapel Hill, 4 hours from home Quick background: My husband Ron has metastatic prostate cancer. This moment is happening while he waits in a temporary “holding cell “off some hallway…
Read MoreIn My Blood: What Makes Us Who We Are?
I’m obsessed with the nature vs. nurture debate. What makes us who we are? The nature part is easy: Mom’s green eyes, check. Dad’s high forehead, check. But how deep into the family tree does nature go? Is it nature or nurture when our kin leave indelible marks that get under our skin and inform…
Read MoreMom’s Last Laugh
I will always remember the last time Mom laughed. It was in January 2023, just weeks before we lost her to Alzheimer’s. From the start, Mom had all the textbook symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease. I was visiting her and Dad at their South Carolina lake house on Mother’s Day weekend in 2018 when Mom told…
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