Tag Archives: grieving

Five Hundred, Twenty-Five Thousand, Six Hundred Minutes

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[if viewing on a device and photos are not fully visible, tap on one and scroll sideways] It has taken me a year to tackle Robert’s obit. I couldn’t face it. The words didn’t come. Then they came and there were too many. Then there were not enough. Now, it is done. The best I could do. It will be published nationally on Saturday in The New York Times, January 18, 2025 on the ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY of his passing. He read The Times everyday, never missed a day since he was a pre-teen. All those years. Now one year … Continue reading →

Part 299: →Husband Journey: Ici Bas. The Marvel of Electronics: Life’s Virtual Reality

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  A blog in two sections. First the weirdness of electronic misadventures in my house. Let’s blame it on sunstorm activity. Then a strange but exhilarating travel via V-R, virtual reality.     Not to sound like Bridgerton’s Lady Whistledown, but hello again, dear reader, it has been a while and taken me a long time to cook another blog. I have to rewind to a strange series of electrical-type events and misplacements of objects which began happening in my house in May and eventually led me to an adventure: I misplaced two books of checks and drove myself nuts … Continue reading →

Part 298: →Husband Journey: Hey! Where You Goin’ With That Suitcase?

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  This post takes us back about a few weeks when I called Robert’s former nursing home to make an appointment to pick up his personal effects. It was months since he left but no one had the energy or courage to pursue the task. I was told by the receptionist who is one of the only  people I respect there, that I would have to notify her of the day I wished to come in, and, in about a day I would get a call to make the pick-up as the effects of those who pass are destined to … Continue reading →

Part 297: →Husband Journey: Don’t Know Why

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© Susan Kalish I walked in the first heat of Spring on an April Sunday afternoon, in circles, knowing where I was going, but not, fearing I would trip and fall on small rocks, trekking up and down grade. “Find me, steer me,” I said, knowing that when alive he had GPS in his head as he was proud of saying. My inner compass was tattered and muddled by emotion: make a right, no, make a left, go up there on that rise. Lost. I hadn’t come here before this, I couldn’t go before, easy as that. I don’t know … Continue reading →

Part 296: →Husband Journey: Tower of Power Meets Pablo Neruda

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Robert’s grandparents, father on the left and uncles on the right     The picking through the piles has begun. Piles and mountains the size of Everest. Photos, so many photos. Sorting, so much sorting. Recreating albums, ditching hundreds of duplicates and realizing that everyone in every photo from previous generations is gone. And, then realizing that the previous generation has been usurped by the present generation and we’re going.   I sit on the floor surrounded by paper and archive someone else’s life; I haven’t had the time to archive my own. I have been given ownership and the … Continue reading →

Part 295: →Husband Journey: These Days

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    Today is March 2, 2024, the one year anniversary of the (second) mastectomy and (complicated) reconstruction which created months of visits by visiting nurses, and live-in aides and long, drawn-out healing which has left me, still uncomfortable and with compromised flexibility. Then there are the medical records. M is for mastectomy. Again. Now when dealing with medical records I am asked to fill-in another date. It was 2004. Now I have to add 20023. March 2, is also the birthday of my first husband, Steve, who passed at the age of twenty-eight. I was twenty-six. It’s a long … Continue reading →

275→Husband Journey: Hand Jive

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Written: Tuesday, April 26, 2022 Today is the bicentennial-birthday of Frederick Law Olmsted, (April 26, 1822 – August 28, 1903), who is considered the Father of Landscape Architecture. When I first heard of him, it was through Robert. Olmsted designed Central Park, Riverside Drive, Riverside Park, Ft. Tryon Park, in Manhattan, Prospect Park in Brooklyn, Forest Park in Queens, Vanderbilt Mausoleum in Staten Island, Grand Army Plaza, Fort Greene Park in Brooklyn, and more, all in New York City: His legacy includes parks, buildings, campuses, cemeteries, public and private works, all over the country. In today’s The New York Times … Continue reading →