Jan’s Silk Scarf

Estimated reading time: 10 minutes, 52 seconds

Walking in Toronto 

As much as I wanted to walk back to the hotel, I asked Jan, “Do you want to walk or take a Lyft?” The sky was filled with stars, and a warm breeze blew the leaves on the trees. Let’s walk.” She responded. I kissed her lips and said, “Thank you.

Holding her hand, we walked and talked like we did on the first day we met

I have always been amazed by your sense of direction,” Jan said with a puzzled look on her face. 

“I have always had a good sense of direction.”

“Even in a city, you have never been in before.”

“Yes.”

I am glad I am walking with you.

“Me too, my dear. My sense of direction has gotten better since I met you.”

“No way.”

Your love has not only made me a better person. You are my true north star!

Jan’s face blushed as she shook her head. She was not fluent in the language of love, especially in public, but I loved her so much it did not matter. 

Although we walked the final blocks to the hotel in silence, I loved her more than when I met her.

I wanted to keep walking with her forever.

Nothing in my wildest imagination could have convinced me at that moment that we would only have one more anniversary to celebrate together.

Hotel Room Overlooking Lake Ontario

“Why don’t you go to the bathroom first, my dear, and I will go get ice for you.” Jan smiled as I helped her out of her light jacket. “Thanks, I do need to use the bathroom,” she said. I turned and gave her a quick kiss. “So you will not forget me…”

As soon as she went into the bathroom, I placed the package with the scarf on her pillow. I had not had time to wrap it or prepare a card, as we were on vacation. 

When I returned with the ice, Jan had a humorous frown on her face as she stood in front of the windows overlooking lovely Lake Ontario.

“You shouldn’t have purchased the scarf!”

You liked it, and you looked beautiful when you tried it on.

“But I have nothing for you!”

Your love is all I have ever needed.”

She embraced and kissed me.

“Thanks, I love it so very much. I can’t wait until I can wear it!”

I kissed her. I pulled away reluctantly as I needed to put the ice bucket on the dresser. 

Why don’t you get ready for bed, and I am sure I can find some way to thank you tonight,” Jan said with a seductive purr. 

Next Page

Pages: 1 2 3 4

3 comments add your comment

Share your thoughts and ideas

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Previous Post:

Next Post:

The Jan Lilien Education Fund!

The Exhibitionist: A Novel

Read: July 2023

Get this book

The Exhibitionist: A Novel

by Charlotte Mendelson

I began reading Charlotte Mendelson‘s novel, The Exhibitionist, today. The book tells the story of Lucia and Ray, two artists whose marriage starts to fall apart over a weekend. It explores themes such as art, sacrifice, family dynamics, queer desire, and personal freedom. Charlotte Mendelson has created yet another exceptional novel with The Exhibitionist, ranked as the year’s novel by The Times of London, and described as “furiously funny.”

The Hanrahan family is coming together for an important weekend. Ray Hanrahan, a well-known artist with a big ego, is preparing for his first exhibition in many years. His eldest daughter, Leah, is his biggest supporter. His son, Patrick, has decided to pursue his own path. His youngest daughter, Jess, has a big decision to make. Ray’s wife, Lucia, is also an artist but has always prioritized her roles as a wife and mother. She is keeping secrets of her own and must decide which desires to pursue as the weekend progresses and the exhibition approaches.


The Jan Lilien Education Fund sponsors ongoing sustainability and environmental awareness programs. Gifts made this month; I will match dollar-for-dollar. All donations are tax-deductible.

Subscribe

Contact Us

I receive a commission when you buy a book or product using a link on this page. Thank you for supporting Sharing Jan’s Love blog.



×
We Are All the Same in the Dark

Read: January 2023

Get this book

We Are All the Same in the Dark

by Julia Heaberlin

We Are All the Same in the Dark by Julia Heaberlin is a novel I highly recommend and wish I had read earlier. The title summarizes the reality of all humans, that in the dark we are all the same. Disabilities do not define us, just as being a widow does not define who I am. In this twisty psychological thriller, Julia Heaberlin paints two unforgettable portraits of a woman and a girl who redefine perceptions of physical beauty and strength. Her novel has helped me redefine my grief.

I have been a widow for almost twenty-one months. After a trauma of that magnitude, it is easier to let the widowed state define me. But I am more than just a widow! But I am a father, grandfather, friend, neighbor, advocate, and more. Reading We Are All the Same in the Dark helped me embrace myself and not wallow in widowhood.

The novel begins with the discovery of a girl abandoned by the side of the road who threatens to unearth the long-buried secrets of a Texas town’s legendary cold case. In the first section, I was still determining if I wanted to continue. Once I read about Odette Tucker and Angel, it became a page-turner. 

This line from Odette given to Angelica, aka Angel, summarizes the characteristics that each of us should live by.

Tender. Resilient. Strong. Resourceful. Kind. Empathetic.—Six words Marshall Tucker wrote on a piece of paper to describe his daughter, Odette.

As a mensch-in-training, I will strive to live by those six words.

We are truly all the same in the dark.

We Are All the Same in the Dark is the ninth book I read this year.

The Goodreads summary provides an overview,

It’s been a decade since Trumanell Branson disappeared, leaving only a bloody handprint behind. Her pretty face still hangs like a watchful queen on the posters on the walls of the town’s Baptist church, the police station, and the high school. They all promise the same thing: We will find you. Meanwhile, her brother, Wyatt, lives as a pariah in the desolation of the old family house, cleared of wrongdoing by the police but tried and sentenced in the court of public opinion and a new documentary about the crime.

When Wyatt finds a lost girl dumped in a field of dandelions, making silent wishes, he believes she is a sign. The town’s youngest cop, Odette Tucker, believes she is a catalyst that will ignite a seething town still waiting for its missing girl to come home. But Odette can’t look away. She shares a wound that won’t close with the mute, one-eyed mystery girl. And she is haunted by her history with the missing Tru.

Desperate to solve both cases, Odette fights to save the lost girl in the present and to dig up the shocking truth about a fateful night in the past–the night her friend disappeared. This night inspired her to become a cop, the night that wrote them all a role in the town’s dark, violent mythology.


The Jan Lilien Education Fund sponsors ongoing sustainability and environmental awareness programs. Gifts made this month; I will match dollar-for-dollar. All donations are tax-deductible.

Subscribe

Contact Us

I receive a commission when you buy a book or product using a link on this page. Thank you for supporting Sharing Jan’s Love blog.



×
Zenith Man

Read: February 2023

Get this book

Zenith Man, Inheritance #4

by Jennifer Haigh

Tonight I read Zenith Man by Jennifer HaighA 911 call begins the story. A man reports his wife had died, but no one knew he had a wife. For thirty-two years, they had been married, and only one person had seen her, but only for a minute when she said: “supper was ready.” I read the first page and immediately found myself with a short page-turner that I could not stop reading. I recommend Zenith Man.

Actual events inspired this story. For many decades, many acquaintances of Jan and mine had no idea we were married. Once they found out, the response was, “we should have known as the two of you are perfect for each other.” But they knew we were married and had met both of us.

Being a widow, I found this phrase in the story emotional and very moving.

“She was a good woman,” Harold told Cob Krug. “I was lucky to have her. I promised to keep her in sickness and in health, and that’s what I did.”

Is there anything more that can summarize the love between two people?

I highly recommend Zenith Man, part of Inheritance, a collection of five stories about secrets, unspoken desires, and dangerous revelations between loved ones. Each Inheritance piece can be read or listened to in a single setting. By yourself, behind closed doors, or shared with someone you trust. Zenith Man is the fourth one in the series I have read. The previous three were Everything My Mother Taught Me, Can You Feel This?, and The Lion’s Den.

I have enjoyed all four and look forward to reading the final one.

Now that I have read Ms. Haigh’s short story, I have added her newest novel, Mercy Streetto my queue.

The Goodreads summary provides an overview,

Whatever had been going on inside the shuttered old house, the couple who lived there kept it to themselves. Among the locals, there’s only chilling speculation.

Neighbors are shocked when Harold Pardee reports his wife dead. No one even knew the eccentric TV repairman was married. Within hours, horrible rumors spread about what that poor woman must have endured for thirty years. Until the Pardees’ carefully guarded world is exposed. New York Times bestselling author Jennifer Haigh delivers an endearing short story about our misguided perception of strangers, the nature of love, and the need for secrets.


The Jan Lilien Education Fund sponsors ongoing sustainability and environmental awareness programs. Gifts made this month; I will match dollar-for-dollar. All donations are tax-deductible.

Subscribe

Contact Us

I receive a commission when you buy a book or product using a link on this page. Thank you for supporting Sharing Jan’s Love blog.



×
20 Under 40

Read: January 2019

Get this book

20 Under 40 Fiction

by Various Writers Under 40

Short Stories that Will Define the Future of American Letters

The New Yorker’s collection of short stories – 20 Under 40 – is a collection of twenty writers “whose work will help define the future of American letters.”

Some of these I had read in The New Yorker and others I had missed. Either way, they were a pleasure to read.

As The New Yorker wrote,

The range of voices is extraordinary. There is the lyrical realism of Nell Freudenberger, Philipp Meyer, C. E. Morgan, and Salvatore Scibona; the satirical comedy of Joshua Ferris and Gary Shteyngart; and the genre-bending tales of Jonathan Safran Foer, Nicole Krauss, and Téa Obreht. David Bezmozgis and Dinaw Mengestu offer clear-eyed portraits of immigration and identity; Sarah Shun-lien Bynum, ZZ Packer, and Wells Tower offer voice-driven, idiosyncratic narratives. Then there are the haunting sociopolitical stories of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Daniel Alarcón, and Yiyun Li, and the metaphysical fantasies of Chris Adrian, Rivka Galchen, and Karen Russell.

Each of these writers reminds us why we read. And each is aiming for greatness: fighting to get and to hold our attention in a culture that is flooded with words, sounds, and pictures; fighting to surprise, to entertain, to teach, and to move not only us but generations of readers to come. A landmark collection, 20 Under 40 stands as a testament to the vitality of fiction today.

I recommend this collection of short stories.

Subscribe

Contact Us

×
Man's Search for Meaning

Read: January 2022

Get this book

Man’s Search for Meaning

by Viktor E. Frankl

I remember reading portions of Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl at different times, but I never finished the book. However, recently, eight and a half months after the passing of Jan, the book came up for discussion in one of my groups. Frankl’s theory of logotherapy, which derives from the Greek word for “meaning,” centers around the idea that the primary human drive is not pleasure, as Freud believed, but rather the search for what gives life meaning. I now have a framework for my life without Jan.

For those like me who are widows, Frankl understands suffering,

In some ways, suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning, such as the meaning of a sacrifice.

Jan and I lived meaningful lives. My challenge now is to continue to find meaning in my life without Jan.

As Frankl writes,

Those who have a ‘why’ to live, can bear with almost any ‘how’.

The love Jan and I shared was one of my primary sources of meaning. In addition, I stopped working full-time at the end of 2018 and struggled to replace the purpose I had gained from repairing the world. After Jan died, I suffered the “provisional existence of an unknown limit.” Frankl experienced that when he was in the concentration camps.

I have replaced the loss of meaning and purpose with a series of activities:

  1. Planning to Celebrate Jan Day on her birthday this year;
  2. Writing my random thoughts on Jan, love, grief, life, and all things considered;
  3. Reading more than ever, including my Goodreads 2022 Reading Challange; and
  4. Walking more than I probably should.

I am also beginning to serve on the board of a few non-profits. It is time to transition from hands-on work to providing leadership differently.

Will this be enough to give my life meaning?

Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather must recognize that it is he who is asked. In a word, each man is questioned by life; and he can only answer to life by answering for his own life; to life he can only respond by being responsible.

I must continue focusing on my search for meaning, as life will change over time.

My grief journey has taught me that love never dies,

For the first time in my life, I saw the truth as it is set into song by so many poets, proclaimed as the final wisdom by so many thinkers. The truth – that Love is the ultimate and highest goal to which man can aspire. Then I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret that human poetry and human thought and belief have to impart: The salvation of man is through love and in love.

My path forward is to keep Jan’s love alive and continue to share it with others.

I recommend this book without reservation.


The Jan Lilien Education Fund sponsors ongoing sustainability and environmental awareness programs. Gifts made this month; I will match dollar-for-dollar. All donations are tax-deductible.

Subscribe

Contact Us

I receive a commission when you buy a book or product using a link on this page. Thank you for supporting Sharing Jan’s Love.

×
Reluctantly Home

Read: June 2022

Get this book

Reluctantly Home

by Imogen Clark

Reluctantly Home by Imogen Clark is about dealing with the past—and finally facing the future-a topic that was appealing to me. Thirteen months into my grief journey, I live between a perfect past and an unknowable future. Will Reluctantly Home by Imogen Clark help me manage these two worlds?

Surprisingly it did. Unlike the two protagonists, I am mourning losing Jan, the love of my life. However, the neuromapping in my brain made it impossible to understand how to continue to love Jan and separate that from the time and space connections that made me believe she would return at any moment.

Reluctantly Home by Imogen Clark helped me understand that grief should and cannot define us forever. I recommend this book to all readers, not only those on a grief journey like mine.

The Goodreads summary provides an overview.

Pip Appleby seems to have it all, with her prestigious job as a human rights lawyer and her enviable London home. But then a tragic accident stops her life in its tracks, and everything changes instantly. Retreating to her family’s rural farm and the humble origins she has been trying to hide, Pip is haunted by what she has done.

When she discovers the diary of actress Evelyn Mountcastle in a box of old books, Pip revels in the opportunity to lose herself in someone else’s life rather than focus on the disaster that is her own. But soon, she sees parallels—Evelyn’s life was also beset by tragedy, and, like Pip, she returned to Southwold under a dark cloud.

When Pip and Evelyn’s paths cross in real life, they slowly begin to reveal the hidden stories holding them back. Can they help each other forgive what happened in the past and, perhaps, find happiness in the future?


Subscribe

Contact Us

When you buy a book or product using a link on this page, I receive a commission. Thank you for supporting Sharing Jan’s Love blog.

×

Discover more from Sharing Jan’s Love

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading