Never did I think I would end up as a widow after having been married for only two years. And never did I think I would find so many hidden treasures in the estate of my beloved husband. One was an unfinished horn piece he had scribbled in pencil on staff paper, which I unearthed…
You are spouses-to-be or have already married and are pondering where to spend your honeymoon? Been there, done that. My tip: Go to Hawaii for a one-in-a-lifetime experience. David and I actually had three possible targets in mind: the Grand Canyon, the Niagara Falls, and Hawaii. My husband, an American born in Massachusetts, had already…
I loved her more than Sally. I know you should love all your children equally, but Honey was special. She had eyes the color of caramel that looked right into your soul. She came from difficult circumstances; she had lived on the streets before we got her from the shelter. Who knows what she had…
It was May 8th, 2009, around 11 a.m. I sat at the computer in my office in the English department in Faner Hall of Southern Illinois University Carbondale, from time to time glancing out of the window at the bending trees and the pouring rain. It was finals week, the final exams and essays had…
The four most important questions first, in case you are currently considering IVF: Will it hurt? Yes. Will it be emotionally draining? Yes. Will it cost a lot? Yes. Will it be totally worth it? Yes, if it works in the end. Any guarantee? No. My husband and I wished so much for a baby,…
After I had become a lecturer of English at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale in 2007, I purchased my first home, and to offset the mortgage, I had taken in a student tenant, Jielei. She was an athlete and a life-guard in the Rec Center. We had nothing in common, except for one thing: we…
Building the Aeronca took us four years. Four years of sweat and heavy lifting, designing, drilling, cutting, screwing, sewing, welding, ironing, painting – the most exciting, wonderful experiences I made during my summer-off time from the university, when I helped John Williams, or “John the Mason,” as I used to call him, because he was…
In the fifth chapter of From Childhood to Adolescence, Maria Montessori talks about how children need to see real things; she mentions that in the course of the history of education, children first were just presented with illustrations, and later were allowed to see things in museums. However, “enclosed objects” watched by “confined children” (From…
“Is he your grandson?” asked a guy at the Christmas market when I was pushing my son’s stroller along the booths. “Have you never seen a mom over 40?” I thought, dismayed. Not every girl finds her true love in her twenties. I met the love of my life at 38, through my job at…
It was 11 p.m. on January 29th. I was 34+5 weeks pregnant. I had come home from teaching night class from 4-7:30 p.m., had made dinner, jumped into the bathtub, and was drying myself off when I noticed I lost my water. At first, I wasn’t sure if it was from the bath, but it…
What gets to you most is the sound. The beeping of the machines, the alarms when babies have bradycardia (the so-called “bradys”) and when the monitors recording their heart rate and breathing go off, or even worse, when a baby codes. The constant crying and wailing of suffering little human beings, mixed in with the…