Category: NEXT: An Empowerment Series

These are historic times. We all know it. Previously unseen events unfold . Many we hope to never see  again.  Postings of rock concert crowds and soccer fans in the stadium are replaced by those of our prettiest petunias and our most impressive pizza.  For some, perhaps the lonely face of a white haired loved one through a window.  So awake are we to the significance of this season of our lives that institutions across the country are keeping a close record.  I am one of many who chronicle my COVID-19 experience as a part of a project to contribute to our local university’s archives.   What gives such significance that it is worth preserving? Expert preservationists say that it is important enough to keep if it

“There are good days and bad days.” The words come out of my mouth. I sense an odd discomfort. The phrase once belonged to my brother Tim and later my late husband John. Each lived with pain awaiting their death.  It was a way of saying “Some days it hurts a little less than others.” I live in a pain-free body in apparently perfect health. I hope to become a centenarian. Yet these words were now a part of my pandemic vocabulary.  What was I calling a “bad” day? A “good” day? I hit the gene lottery good days.  I

I instantly recognized the evidence.  They were back.  My heartrate sped up. “This time will be different,” I told myself. This time I know what I’m dealing with. Three years ago I noticed a few. I was curious. I admired their beauty.  The next day there were more, and along with them large swaths of once lush green leaves turned to delicate skeletons of crumbling brown. A week later, the geraniums, petunias, and hibiscus were gone. It was the worst infestation in years.  Iridescent emerald green with bronze wings, Japanese beetles are pretty and little. They practically glow when they

When Nancy said she wanted me to be a part of her wedding to Linetta, I knew it would be in another state.   It was years before the glorious ruling from the Supreme Court on marriage equality. Today we celebrate the 5 year anniversary of the day we read the words of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg:   They ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law. The Constitution grants them that right.   Many years before she got married and long before the Obergefell ruling, Nancy made the choice to use her single voice to work for change.  In the 1980s I was a dues paying member of the Nebraska National Organization for Women.  But married with two

“Just the state of the world,” she said, tears falling one by one. She brushed her long brown hair—that had grown considerably longer this year—off of her downcast face. She hardly knew where to begin. This day, like all since the start of the pandemic, she gave every ounce of dwindling energy to her job. Her couch joined her little dog in becoming a constant companion. Even with a shortened workday, she was exhausted. The number of Covid-19 deaths everywhere continued to climb by the day. Peaceful protesters in the nation’ s capital were met with rubber bullets, tear gas,

With June half gone and virtually all weddings postponed, the tears are different. Gentle weeping from the emotions of the music and the moment become full-fledged sobbing of frustration and disappointment. Grand plans long awaited to be lived are not.  I’ve officiated many weddings. (Yes, she with a long history of doing divorces.) The words of love, the witnessing of commitment, the cutting of the cake and the hugging of cousins fill our hearts. A good number of the would-be wedding couples will not be denied these glorious moments. Instead, they are placed on pause. Along with the sadness could also come a continued anticipation and a deepening of the meaning of

It took me nearly nine years to clean one closet. After John died and most of his clothes had made it to the men’s shelter like he’d asked, I attempted to clear it but mostly kept it crammed with everything from seldom worn jackets to supplies for making vision boards.  Unlike me, John delighted in getting rid of things. Because his journey from a terminal diagnosis to the day he left this earth spanned over a decade, I watched him part with everything from business receipts to a beloved acreage in the country. He had room for morning meditation, calling faraway friends, and playing cribbage.  Letting go has never been my strong suit. My son once opened my

When recent results from the Covid-19 Impact Survey revealed that 6 out of 10 of us had felt anxious, depressed, lonely, or hopeless in the preceding 7 days, I was reminded of that which I have mostly had the luxury of merely observing.  I heard the buzzing open of two sets of locked doors that clang loudly behind you as you enter the hospital unit where your possessions are in a locked metal cabinet and the walls are bare of objects of interest to those skilled in suicide attempts.  I witnessed the weeping father who would not see his little boys on Christmas because his malfunctioning brain led him to beat them.   I stood in the darkened hallway in hushed conversation about how

Sometime between the fading of the hot pink blooms of the redbud trees and the arrival of the purple striped tulips, I began my daily watch. Last week I drove by to see, but it was not yet time. Patience, I reminded myself. But now it was a Monday morning after a week of biding my time. I awake at six. I sharpen my clippers. I put on walking shoes and my garden gloves. I find the turquoise bucket that once belonged to my late friend Mary and fill it a third full of water. I head out, softly singing

“Was what I just said really true?” I silently asked myself.  I’d just claimed I felt sad that I would not be with my children on Mother’s Day. In the moment I did feel a little sad. While not an unusual thought for a mother to have, I questioned it.  My children moved to other cities many years ago. If pressed, I could not remember the last Mother’s Day I spent with them.  I have long been at peace that this day is not celebrated around mushroom quiche and mimosa toasts to my mom awesomeness.  I have been greatly spared from the biggest separation sorrows that so many are experiencing.  Still, week after week I do not see my remoting work family, my