My Last Uncle
When I was born, I had a full complement of aunts and uncles. Though my parents’ families were nowhere near the size of some Dubuque clans, my mom had a sister and two brothers, and my dad had — let’s see – two sisters and…
Tag: uncles
The Importance of Aunts & Uncles
Lately I’ve been missing my aunts and uncles. A few are still alive – two widowed aunts, living out their dementia-fogged days in assisted living, and one matched set, the aunt a nurse, the uncle my mother’s younger brother. He, too, is in the grip…
After retiring from a column-writing gig lasting eleven years and yielding over 300 personal essays, I find I still have something to say. My thoughts range far and wide, and occasionally deep, on subjects including being an Iowan who misses Colorado; surviving marital violence; raising an amazing daughter and an equally amazing son; being justifiably angry about the world “these days;” writing poetry and plays; wondering if I’ll get Alzheimer’s like my mom and her two brothers; wanting to write about my twin granddaughters without sounding all Hallmark-y; fixing OCD-ish food; making sense of pants that come in shorts / crops / ankle-grazing / bootcut; being a librarian in public, academic, archival, and medical libraries; waiting 46 years to attend my high school reunion; having a gorgeous garden I can’t take care of; seeing a shaman; loving good men despite all the bad ones; and trying to wrest a little joy from life despite an 11-year-and-counting chronic migraine.