Essays Category
All That Terrible, Beautiful Music
Posted on December 23, 2021 Leave a Comment
What can I say, my daily mood is underscored by intense sadness. I lose my son every minute of every day—in the grocery aisle, at a red light when a BMW 350 xi passes by while an NPR guest discusses how breathwork and yoga changed her traumatized brain, saving her life. In every store […]
David Garcia Memorial Service, October 13, 2001
Posted on October 14, 2021 Leave a Comment
On a severe clear Saturday, two-decades ago, my family and I remembered my love; husband, daddy, son, brother, uncle, cousin. Three weeks planning a funereal service on a barrier island in a public State Park and with the iconic Boardwalk restaurant, culminated in a beautiful celebration of life with violins and butterflies. Funerals and memorial […]
WAKING INTO SEPTEMBER 12TH, 2021 Continuing Beyond Twenty-Years of My 9/11 Life
Posted on September 12, 2021 2 Comments
After moving through Twenty-years of 9/11, I find strength in the pain to continue my journey with hope.
As I Approach the Twentieth Anniversary of September 11th
Posted on September 8, 2021 1 Comment
The pressure begins mid-July, with the surge of email, postal letters, and ramped-up 9/11 media aggrandizement. On August 1st, the tunnel of lasts and memorial making opens its dark eye, drawing me into the force that always unfurls my sons and I into the bedrock, with the others, to gather, to mourn, to embrace, to […]
I Hope I LOVE YOU Does the Trick: Veneration of a 34th Wedding Anniversary
Posted on July 25, 2021 1 Comment
David and I were married July 25th, 1987. We celebrated fourteen wedding anniversaries together in life, twenty apart in afterlife. Since I wrote him a letter for his birthday in May, I decided that my gift to him, if we were slicing carrot cake together, would be a letter that I had written to him when we were the tender ages of 21 and 24.
IRELAND UNTIL ETERNITY
Posted on March 17, 2021 Leave a Comment
Éire go Bráth What’s the craic behind Saint Patrick’s Day? I’ve never felt akin to what has always presented to me as an Irish Heritage Day. With all the reveling, parades, and green ale, bar-hopping debauchery, it’s no wonder that visions of leprechauns chasing rainbows, arising from pots of gold coins, headline modern-day digital images […]
My Story in Ts
Posted on February 28, 2021 1 Comment
Memory is not just a when, recalled in the now. The past is never just the then, a form, an event, a life, that had an essence in a span of something before. Memory is a pulse, coursing through all dimensions of life, like an echo hidden deep inside a mountain, it returns again, and […]
Letter to My Son
Posted on December 24, 2020 Leave a Comment
Dear Son, This letter has taken me eighty-one sleepless nights to write, this being the longest night of the year. It is also the night of the “Great Conjunction” of 2020, when Jupiter and Saturn come the closest to each other since the year 1623—which occurred during the years Galileo was studying the stars. The […]
THE SUN, THE MOON, AND THE STARS, and a CAKE… A Birthday Story
Posted on October 25, 2020 Leave a Comment
On the eve of my 34th birthday, my husband walked through the front door around 7 pm after a full day of work. He greeted me with a bouquet of yellow roses, wrapping his arms around my waist in his usual way, while lifting pot lids on the stove. “Mmm, how’s my dear today? I […]
DANIEL BURGESS 1953-2020 Tribute To a True Top Dog
Posted on October 13, 2020 Leave a Comment
You think the wonderful people in your life are going to be around as long as you, especially those in your generation. Life moves fast, a season passes after you’ve said “let’s do lunch”, a birthday passes with a text message greeting, a pandemic hinders plans to make anticipated trips to visit friends and family…
