Category: seniors
-
I Knew Her When
I knew Mariam when she turned fifty. She wasn’t extremely happy about that “milestone” to say the least. When President Bill Clinton turned fifty (he celebrated up here in Lake Placid), he was asked how it felt. His reply: “It’s kind of sad knowing that more of your life is behind you and not in…
-
Digging A Grave On A Beautiful Spring Afternoon
I stood in the soft loam, nine inches below ground level, leaned against my shovel, and thought about death and insects. This is not a difficult thing to do when you’re helping to dig a grave on a day in May when the gnats and flies are biting ankles and arms. After all, it is…
-
Dear Grandpa
Dear Grandpa, I thought I’d write to you today. It’s been such a long time since we had a chance to sit and talk about things. I have so many memories of you, I don’t know where to begin. It was so long ago. Remember when I was a little boy? You lived with Grandma…
-
The Postman Always Winks Twice
Sometime in the late 1990’s, my wife and I drove to Owego, NY to visit my aging father. My mum had passed away in 1992, so my dad was living quietly and alone as a widower in our big rambling family home on Front Street. Room by room and closet by closet, any objects or…
-
Forever and a Day
Absolutely nothing lasts forever. Nothing lasts forever. There may be some things that last forever. One thing lasts forever. You’re waiting for me in the cafe. The place beside the old church and next to the cemetery. The only place in the city where I can sit next to the fire and feel warm…on…
-
Floccinaucinihilipilification Or Not
On a day last week when the sky took on a strange hue of Cerulean Frost mixed with patches of Brandeis Blue that hung, ever so delicately, over hills of Bulgarian Rose and Caput Mortuum, I happened to be having a chat with my octogenarian friend…a retired oceanographer. “I am full of vicissitudes today,” she…
patrickjegan 