Mary Jacobs After her mother passed away, Jeanette Leardi invited female friends to her home for a special gathering. It wasn’t exactly a memorial service; many attendees never knew her mother. Instead, it was a healing ritual for Leardi. The group lit candles, played music and took turns reading favorite poems or…
A Pack a Day
2 December 2022
Ron Grimes
aging, childhood, adolescencebodydeath, mortality, the deaddiseasefamilyfunerals, cemeterieshealingillnessmemoirreligion, spirituality
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I In the beginning lush San Diego was the Garden of Eden. At the end, when the tall steel gates closed behind them, Nelda said, “Let the Great Serpent have that dreadful place.” She was a riveter. Her husband Miles was a welder. Consolidated Aircraft had terminated their jobs at the end of World…
My Book, My Self
At fifty I wrote Marrying & Burying, a memoir. Today, twenty-eight years later, in the middle of a pandemic, I have time for a backward glance. Or a forward glance. Who can say? I’m scrubbing my hands routinely and building a coffin in the basement, hoping to ward off death. Writing a memoir is…
The Man Who Gave Himself Away
When I retired in 2008, I began giving away stuff. It’s 2020 and I’m still giving things away. What seemed like treasure back then is crap now. At first I resented giving things away, because I enjoyed collecting. Hang around me now, and I’ll be loading you with stuff. Check my front yard, more stuff…
Big questions
When the kids were little, we began tossing them big questions. Where are your dead grandparents? Where do babies come from? What is a good person? What’s bad? If the house were on fire and you had to grab one thing, what would it be? These videoed interviews took various forms: storytelling, metaphysical speculation, flights…
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