Becoming a widow leaves me with an extraordinary amount of time. The Before Time I…
Widow’s Weeds 19: Charlotte’s Web
I must have read Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White dozens of times; probably for the first time when I was about thirteen. The book and I are the same age, both of us born in 1952. Charlotte’s Web was in a pile of books I had pulled from Dan’s study, mostly children’s...
Widow’s Weeds 18: Back Home And So Alone
On Sunday, October 15, I ended the day feeling ill, and was grateful for Tali’s Ayurvedic ministrations. They helped. Monday morning saw some improvement but by evening I needed an early bedtime. Tuesday, we attended to a number of tasks, and right away I realized...
Widow’s Weeds 17: Sentimental Journey
Vilnius—in fact, all of Lithuania—is a constant experience of déjà vu. Or perhaps more accurately, jau matytas. Every day seemed a trip down Memory Lane. October 6 I hadn’t planned to be ensconced in my room at Bookinn B&B by that day, but I had fled the pas...
Widow’s Weeds 16: Reminders of What Matters
I expected the village of Žiežmariai to be a quick stop. My target was the church, St James the Apostle, where so many Tomkuses had been baptized, married and seen off to the hereafter. The wooden prayer house those ancestors would have known was replaced in 1924 by...
Widow’s Weeds 15: In Search of the Tomkuses of Miežonys
The plan was to spend a couple days in the place where Dan’s paternal grandfather, Kazimir Tamkus, came from. Kazimir and his brother Petrus died in the Diamond Mining disaster in Scranton, Pennsylvania in December 1914. Family facts and fancies died with them when...
Widow’s Weeds 14: Just Don’t
When I traveled with Dan, my chief focus was his comfort. Car rentals, hotel choices, itineraries: all decisions reflected our very different tourism styles. Inefficiencies, inconveniences and the unexpected don’t rattle me but they could easily discommode him. Rent...
Widow’s Weeds 13: Now At Rest
The cemetery in Balbieriškis is a beautiful place, whatever the metric you choose. It is a place of peace and transcendent love that is evident in the tending of the space, the care for the ancestors. The Old Cemetery is the most beautiful of all, with its signs of...
Widow’s Weeds 12: Au Revoir Paris
Jean-Bernard grimaces as he tells me it’s gonna be hot. Thirty-two degrees. He wrinkles his nose. I already know. Weather.com says 78 ° F by early afternoon. “Je déteste la chaleur,” I respond. “Moi aussi,” he agrees. He doesn’t like the heat, either. It’s Not 1999...