Memorials
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My friend Michelle blogged about a young girl who lost her battle with cystic fibrosis last week, and I was drawn to her caringbridge site for so many different reasons. As a teacher, I’ve lost too many kids to tragedies–some in their control (drugs, car accidents) and some not (murder, cancer, cystic fibrosis). So when…
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Happy Birthday Mom. You would have turned 82 today, and not a day goes by that I don’t think of you or our many trips we had taken to Maine, Canada, Florida, and other wonderful places. In every adventure, we seized the day, didn’t we? We lived every minute to the fullest, savored the sunsets,…
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When we moved last May, we debated about whether to bring our old tree with us. We bought it back in 2000 because we had a National Lampoon experience seeking out the perfect live tree. Three bad evergreens later (all resting outside our living room window, thank you very much), we decided to go artificial.…
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It was a year ago today that I learned of the life and death of Jenn See. I was reading some new blogs, and I came across Carl V’s site, Stainless Steel Droppings. While reading some of his earlier posts, I came across a memorial post to Jenn See (click here to read that original…
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We buried Mom today. It was a beautiful service, and we had our entire family back at our new house for hours of sharing wonderful memories. I was also so pleased to see so many of my friends and my colleagues show up at the viewing and at the funeral. The support has been overwhelming,…
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Eileen Westervelt, May 12, 1926 — May 17, 2007 I don’t think I have ever been so sad, yet so honored, in my life. The passing of my mother was not an immediate thing, nor was it ugly in any sense in these past two years that she battled cancer and lived more fully than…
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Last weekend, I celebrated my 42nd birthday, and my wife gave me an iTunes gift card as one of my gifts. At first, I played around with the idea of getting a vintage Roches CD, as I really miss some of those songs that got me through some tough days teaching in my first years…
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It’s hard to imagine any writer not being influenced in some way by the now-late Donald Murray, even if the name doesn’t ring a bell. I was first introduced to his writing and his teaching in 1989. I was a Summer Fellow at the Maryland Writing Project’s Summer Institute, a newbie still to the world…
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When I decided to join the 2,996 project, I found myself once again torn emotionally by the events that happened five years ago. To focus on a single individual, however, was more overwhelming than I could have ever imagined. After i agreed to do this, and I hit the return key to find out who…
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to a mix of 127 JT songs… I did not know Jenn See. She died at such a young age from an apparent heart aneurysm just a day or so after returning from Bonnaroo. I learned of her death rather serendipitously following the links of one commenter, Carl V., who stopped by Janet’s site and…
