November 30th, 2023 | Family, General, Holidays, Loss, Time Passes
The most difficult change has occurred, as I have pondered for the last six months in this blog. Dan’s struggle with kidney failure and other chronic illnesses came to an end on June 6. It wasn’t something unexpected. I had a sense of being ready. I don’t think,...
November 27th, 2023 | Cooking, Kitchen and Table, Family, General, Holidays
One waits and knows they’re coming. The holidays. Thanksgiving and then Christmas. Hew to the old rituals or devise new ones? Or maybe just ignore the events altogether? Thanksgiving Thanksgiving is an excuse to eat good food and too much of it. Once upon a time, it...
November 6th, 2023 | Family, Friends, General, literature and poetry, Loss, Matters of the Spirit, Memory, Writing
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...
October 24th, 2023 | Europe, Family, Friends, General, Health, Loss, Memory, Travel
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...
October 10th, 2023 | Europe, Family, Genealogy, General, Travel
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...
October 7th, 2023 | Architecture and Design, Europe, Family, General, Loss, Matters of the Spirit, Travel
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...