Honeymoon Camping!

Estimated reading time: 15 minutes, 19 seconds

Fire and Rain in the Gap

This looks like a perfect place for a campsite,” I said to Jan as we looked over a large open field on the top of a bluff overlooking the Delaware River on the New Jersey side. I had parked the VW, where it was clear that other cars had spent the evening. We opened the car doors, felt the mild, almost cool air, and knew it was the right place for us. It is a beautiful spot for the first night of our honeymoon.

I walked around and put my arms around her. 

“Nothing is as beautiful as you are, my love!”

We were setting up our tiny orange tent and giggling uncontrollably.

“What do you think of our home away from home,” I inquired.

“I can’t wait to be in bed with you, my love.”

We have to cook before sundown.”

As the fire embers cooled enough so we could cook, I dug a trench around the tent even though it was on a raised pad.

“Why are you digging a trench?”

“I was a Boy Scout, and you have to be prepared.”

Jan snickered.

I hope you will be prepared for a lovely dinner and a fun time in our tent tonight!

I blushed so much that if anyone had walked into our campsite, they would have had trouble distinguishing between my hair and my face. 

“Not that it stopped us before, but we are married, and all I suggested is doing it now as a married couple,” Jan said as she smiled at me.

Dinner was not a gourmet meal but the first meal we had prepared together since our wedding. It was still difficult to believe that it was only two days since we were married. Sunday, we spent with my parents, grandmother, sister, and nephew at a Mets game. 

We had taken them to the airport this morning and left on our honeymoon this afternoon. The drive to the campsite was our first hour alone as a married couple.

With the approach of twilight, I offered to clean the dishes if Jan would get the sleeping bags ready in the tent.

I saw thunderclouds on the horizon as I washed and dried the cooking pots and utensils. I had not heard any reports of storms but was glad I had dug the trench around the tent.

Crawling into the tent, I noticed that Jan had unzipped the two sleeping bags. They were laid on top of each other, making it possible for us to sleep together. 

“My love, you were serious about tonight!”

As much as I wanted to stay in the tent and finally and officially consummate our marriage, I suggested we take a walk before sundown.

Walking on the dirt road we had driven into the camp, we saw other couples and families with more gigantic tents or RVs. 

I am happy we have our little pup tent,” Jan observed. 

“We will be fine. We have very little money but unlimited love.”

The path led to an overlook of the Delaware Water Gap. The river was narrow, and the water moved slowly. The sun appeared to be setting just across the river from where we stood. 

The last few moments of daylight were playing peek-a-boo with the darkening storm clouds. The fire-red flames of the fading sun seemed to be trying to push the impending storm away. But the storm clouds kept getting darker, and soon the sun disappeared.

It Is the first sunset we have seen as a married couple.

Jan put her arms around me. We kissed with an abandon and passion that belied the fact that we had been a couple for almost two years. 

It is the first of thousands we will witness together and seal our love with a kiss,” she whispered.

As the sun began to disappear, we walked hand in hand to our campsite.

The thunderheads, dark and ominous, filled the sky as we returned to the campsite. 

The weather report I checked when we left Brooklyn did not predict stormy weather.

“We will be OK, as we will be together.”

I let Jan enter the tent first. 

“I will be in in a minute or two.”

I checked that the tent was secure, took the shovel, and made the trench around the tent deeper.

I was beginning to worry that we could be in for stormy weather instead of Jan’s planned nocturnal activities. After I completed the inspection, I knew we were as prepared as possible. 

After placing the shovel in the car and other gear to stay dry, I returned to our tent. As soon as I had zipped the tent closed, I kissed the love of my life

With limited space, we fumbled as we undressed each other. Jan believed we, or I, had consummated our wedding the night we were married. But I knew better and wanted tonight to be one we would never forget.

Facing each other in the minimal space, we kissed and hugged until the first lightning bolt hit the ground. It was so close that the thunderclap rolled the tent walls only a few seconds after the flash of light. 

We sat up and held each other tightly.

A monsoon-like downpouring of rain began to fall, and the tent walls became damp and cold.

Laying down, we held each other so tightly that we could barely breathe.

“It can’t last much longer,” I mumbled unconvincingly. 

As the winds intensified, we heard a tree falling

“Should we go to the car?”

“Not sure where we would be safer.”

Jan seemed to accept my opinion, which had no supporting evidence. 

“Plus, if we left, with the wet walls of the tent, I am not sure we could get dressed.”

With the storm, would anyone notice we were in our birthday suits?

We both laughed at the thought of two newlyweds running naked to their car.

“It is probably better that we stay where we are.”

“At least we are dry and together.” 

Instead of getting better or leaving our small plot of heaven on earth, the storm continued and grew stronger. 

We agreed not to make love during the storm without saying a word. Each lightning bolt and body-shaking thunderclap kept our minds focused on survival, not on our honeymoon bed.

Jan put her head in my nook.

“Jan, I love you!”

“Me too!”

With each bolt of lightning and thunderclap, Jan’s body jumped. I held her tighter each time and whispered words of love in her ears. 

As much as I knew we were as prepared as possible for the storm, I knew we were at more risk than I wanted to convey to her. 

I whispered a silent prayer as Jan fell asleep. God, protect us, and we will forever be grateful

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The Little Prince

Read: May 2021

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The Little Prince

by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry is often referred to as a children’s book. I read it as a child and later read it to my children. After Jan died, I picked it up again and read it more than once.

I have found quotes from the book very helpful during my grief journey. These are three that I often use in my writing and my conversations with friends and family.

The most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or touched, they are felt with the heart.”

It is such a mysterious place, the land of tears.

You see, one loves the sunset when one is so sad.”

The first quote about beautiful things only felt in the heart summarizes how I knew Jan was the one for me within seconds of meeting her.

For those who have not read the book, this overview might help convince you to read it today!

The Little Prince describes his journey from planet to planet, each tiny world populated by a single adult. It’s a wonderfully inventive sequence that evokes the great fairy tales and monuments of postmodern whimsy. The author pokes similar fun at a business person, a geographer, and a lamplighter, all of whom signify some futile aspect of adult existence.

The Little Prince will be by my bedside as long as I live!

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Shiner: A Novel

Read: March 2022

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Shiner: A Novel

by Amy Jo Burns

Shiner: A Novel by Amy Jo Burns was my twenty-second of the year, and I achieved my Goodreads 2022 Reading Challenge. An hour from the closest West Virginia mining town, fifteen-year-old Wren Bird lives in a secluded mountain cabin with her parents. They have no car, mailbox, or visitors- except for her mother’s lifelong best friend.

Wren’s narration of her discoveries of the secrets of the past over one summer drives the novel and makes it a page-turner. Her mother, Ruby, and her best friend, Ivy, are two strong women who dreamed of escaping the West Virginia mountains. The male characters play secondary roles in the novel, as they should. Shiner is a feminist book about how women can and must take back their stories and lives from men whose power is an illusion.

I highly recommend this novel and look forward to reading other books by Amy Jo Burns. It was the perfect book to finish my reading challenge. As I continue to read this year, I hope to find another of her books on my shelf.

Goodreads provides an overview.

Every Sunday, Wren’s father delivers winding sermons in an abandoned gas station. He takes up serpents and praises the Lord for his blighted white eye, proof of his divinity and key to his hold over the community, Wren, and her mother.

But over the course of one summer, a miracle performed by Wren’s father quickly turns to tragedy. As the order of her world begins to shatter, Wren must uncover the truth of her father’s mysterious legend and her mother’s harrowing history and complex bond with her best friend. And with that newfound knowledge, Wren can imagine a different future for herself than she has been told to expect.

Rich with epic love and epic loss, and diving deep into a world that is often forgotten but still part of America, Shiner reveals the hidden story behind two generations’ worth of Appalachian heartbreak and resolve. Amy Jo Burns brings us a smoldering, taut debut novel about modern female myth-making in a land of men-and one young girl who must ultimately open her eyes.

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Normal Rules Don't Apply: Stories

Read: September 2023

Normal Rules Don’t Apply: Stories

by Kate Atkinson

Today, I commended reading Normal Rules Don’t Apply: Stories by Kate Atkinson, is a dazzling collection of eleven interconnected stories from the bestselling, award-winning author of Shrines of Gaiety and Life After Life, with everything that readers love about her novels—the inventiveness, the verbal felicity, the sharp observations on human nature, and the deeply satisfying emotional wallop.

Nothing is quite as it seems in this collection of eleven dazzling stories. We meet a queen who makes a bargain she cannot keep, a secretary who watches over the life she has just left, and a man who bets on a horse that may—or may not—have spoken to him. Everything that readers love about the novels of Kate Atkinson is here—the inventiveness, the verbal felicity, the sharp observations on human nature, and the deeply satisfying emotional wallop.

A startling and funny feast for the imagination, these stories conjure a multiverse of subtly connected worlds while illuminating the webs of chance and connection among us all.


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.

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Small Things Like These

Read: July 2024

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Small Things Like These

by Claire Keegan

Today, I read “Small Things Like These” by Claire Keegan, one of the New York Times’s 100 Best Books of the 21st Century, and the seventeenth book I have read from that list. “Small Things Like These” is award-winning author Claire Keegan‘s landmark new novel, a tale of one man’s courage and a remarkable portrait of love and family.

The story is set in 1985 in a small Irish town. During the weeks leading up to Christmas, Bill Furlong, a coal merchant and family man, faces his busiest season. Early one morning, while delivering an order to the local convent, Bill makes a discovery that forces him to confront his past and the complicit silences of a town controlled by the church.

I found this short but well-written novel very impactful. The following quote explains the powerful impact of the need for meaning and purpose in our lives as Furlong walks in the snow after taking action after bringing home a young girl from a Magdalen laundry. How often can we ignore the small things like these and still look ourselves in the mirror?

“As they carried on along and met more people Furlong did and did not know, he found himself asking was there any point in being alive without helping one another? Was it possible to carry on along through all the years, the decades, through an entire life, without once being brave enough to go against what was there and yet call yourself a Christian, and face yourself in the mirror?”

As an international bestseller, ‘Small Things Like These‘ is a profoundly moving story of hope and quiet heroism. It’s a narrative that will make you admire the characters and stir your empathy, all crafted by one of our most critically acclaimed and iconic writers. The characters in the story are so relatable that you will feel understood and deeply invested in their journey.

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The Outrun: A Memoir

Read: October 2022

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The Outrun: A Memoir

by Amy Liptrot

The Outrun: A Memoir by Amy Liptrot is about her return to Orkney after more than a decade; she visits the Outrun on the sheep farm where she grew up. Approaching the land that was once home, memories of her childhood merge with the recent events that have set her on this journey. My current grief journey is not like Amy Liptrot‘s, but I learned from her struggles as we all need the support of family and friends.

Amy’s long walks, detailed description of bird watching, and life on a small island were very moving. I might have moved from one apartment to the adjacent one, but I learned from Amy’s journey and feel more confident facing life’s uncertainties.

I highly recommend this memoir.

The Goodreads summary provides an overview,

Amy was shaped by the cycle of the seasons, birth and death on the farm, and her father’s mental illness, which was as much a part of her childhood as the wild, carefree existence on Orkney. But as she grew up, she longed to leave this remote life. She moved to London and found herself in a hedonistic cycle. Unable to control her drinking, alcohol gradually took over. Now thirty, she finds herself washed up back home on Orkney, standing unstable at the cliff edge, trying to come to terms with what happened to her in London.

Spending early mornings swimming in the bracingly cold sea, the days tracking Orkney’s wildlife—puffins nesting on sea stacks, arctic terns swooping close enough to feel their wings—and nights searching the sky for the Merry Dancers, Amy slowly makes the journey toward recovery from addiction.

The Outrun is a beautiful, inspiring book about living on the edge, about the pull between island and city, and about the ability of the sea, the land, the wind, and the moon to restore life and renew hope.


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.

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Man's Search for Meaning

Read: January 2022

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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.

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