My cousin Polly died in her sleep on November 19, 2016. And I wept for all we had lost. Polly Wittenberg Rothstein was one month past her 80th birthday. This is not a New York Times or a Wall Street Journal obituary. It is simply my remembrances of a cousin loved for who she was and for…
I recently read an article written by The New York Times columnist Jane Brody1 regarding the loss of a spouse and the healing that takes place. It was titled Recovery Varies After a Spouse Dies. The early research maintained that “the vast majority of surviving spouses adjust well.”2 New research suggests, however, that a more…
I’ve often thought about time as a concept and how it relates to memory. Marcel Proust, the French novelist, critic and essayist called memory “the great preserver.” He called time, on the other hand, “the great destroyer.” One preserves, the other destroys. Some pair, huh? According to Proust, time, the more powerful can override and change memory. As…
Resilience. Let me explain: It’s like a tennis ball. Sometimes in a game the ball skips away from you. You swing but you miss. And you have to work harder, whether it’s the next serve or the rally that follows or it’s the next game. It may even be the next day. You think hard…
NOW FOR SOME SWEET (and SOUR! ) TALK April was particularly lovely that year and my husband Ed and I had one last week in the Florida sunshine before leaving for our home in New Jersey. Four nights before we left, however, I woke up and started itching . Oh, my neck, my neck . . ….
In January, I was told that I had been chosen as an Outstanding Woman of the Year in Somerset County by The Somerset County Commission on the Status of Women (SCCSW); the award category was for Public Service. A dinner to present the awards was to be held in March to celebrate Women’s History Month….
Donnie Moorin died on Monday, February 20, 2012. He was 79 years old. Donnie, his younger sister Carole, and their parents lived two houses away from my family on Charles Street in Bridgeport, CT. Carole and I have been close friends since babyhood. Donnie’s death shattered the peace of our Florida vacation — my husband…
Change is in the air. All sorts. All ways. All driven by society. This perpetual transformation pushes developments in technology, science, economics, communication, education and … the list goes on. There’s another equally long list, certainly significant, but not quite so dramatic, that involves much smaller change: really just a penny’s worth. Nevertheless, that kind of change…
Hi Everyone: My post today is a series of short, evocative poems in honor of the New Year. They fly out to you, wonderful readers, with my best wishes for a very happy, healthy, and peaceful 2012. Special mention also speeds through cyberspace to my terrific husband Ed, born on January 1, the most exceptional…
My husband Ed and I and our family celebrated the beginning of the Jewish new year, Rosh Hashanah, with dinner at our home. I loved every one at that table so the evening was delicious. Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement, is now just a week away; that somber holy day begins on the…