by 25 comments

Love is a Magical Force!

Estimated reading time: 14 minutes, 40 seconds
Love Never Dies

I am an Incurable Romantic, and My Life is an Open Book

The essence of life lies in living it to the fullest, but what if we find ourselves living it all alone? The words of Lauren Groff from her book “The Vaster Wilds” resonate with my situation, as she rightly pointed out that to exist alone and survive is not the same as being alive. Although I strive to make the most of my life by reading, writing, walking, offering help to others, and serving as the board chair for Bridges, I still feel that I am merely surviving from one day to the next.

My wife, Jan, was right when she advised me against living alone. However, my quest for love is not solely to have someone’s physical presence around me. Love is what I truly seek. I may sound old-fashioned, but love is the most potent force in the world. It can transform our lives from mundane routines to truly fulfilling ones. Humanity’s only hope for redemption is in love and through love.

Love is a magical phenomenon that happens when two people come together. Finding true love may have its ups and downs, but I have faith that it will eventually find me, even if I must walk alone for a while. I believe in the wisdom of my family and friends, and I remain open to the beautiful possibilities that lie ahead on my journey in life.

Dreaming of Jan March 17, 2021

Holding Jan close, I could feel her warmth and breath on my face. The softness of her skin against mine was a sensation I had missed for months. I whispered words of love into her ear, telling her how much I had missed and loved her. “I love you now and forever” were the words that flowed as smoothly as water cascading over the Crane Mill in Cranford.

I had spent February and March alone in the second bedroom because she had COVID. But finally, having her next to me again felt indescribable. Her divine essence filled the once-empty room, and I felt happy again. I expressed my relief at no longer having to sleep in the spare room now that the COVID quarantine period was over. I was grateful for the chance to be in her arms again.

As I leaned in to kiss her, my hand reached out to hold her close, but to my surprise, all I had in my arms was her pillow. It was a bitter reminder that she was back in the hospital, and I was alone again. Although I was doing OK, the feeling of loneliness was overwhelming as I released the pillow from my grasp. The emptiness of the bed seemed to mock me, reminding me of the almost five decades we spent together.

Ghost Voices – June 10, 2021

As I woke from sleep in a strange room, I couldn’t shake off the feeling that my wife was still beside me. Despite knowing that it was not uncommon to imagine the presence of a loved one after their passing, the weight of this realization felt heavy on my mind. I slowly exited the bed, trying not to disturb her imaginary presence, and carefully adjusted her pillow. I knew she wasn’t there, but the urge to make her feel comfortable was too strong to ignore.

Standing up, I remembered I was in Philadelphia for the Flower Show and needed to use the bathroom. My thoughts were hazy, and my movements felt sluggish. I walked to the bathroom, trying to convince myself that Jan would lie there when I returned, just as she always did. However, deep down, I knew that this was just a product of my grief and my mind playing tricks on me. Nevertheless, I couldn’t help but hope she was still with me.

Wedding Bliss

After returning to the bedroom, I picked up my iPhone, opened the photo app, and started scanning through Jan’s photos. As I came across our wedding photo and the ones with our boys, I couldn’t help but feel a mix of emotions. Tears welled up in my eyes as I smiled at the memories. I then placed the phone upside down on the nightstand and added a third emotion to the mix. I found myself laughing, smiling, and crying simultaneously. It was a bittersweet moment, and I couldn’t help but feel grateful for the memories captured in those photos.

Pages: 1 2 3

25 comments add your comment

    Leave a Comment

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

    Previous Post:

    Next Post:

    The Jan Lilien Education Fund!

    Donate Now!
    The Rest of Our Lives

    Read: January 2026

    Get this book

    The Rest of Our Lives

    by Ben Markovits

    The Rest of Our Lives by Ben Markovits is a beautifully crafted, tender, and insightful story that depicts the journey of starting anew. Tom Layward, the protagonist, chooses not to return home after dropping his daughter off at college. This life-affirming road trip novel explores themes of marriage, middle age, and a man confronting a pivotal moment. It was a finalist for the 2025 Booker Prize.

    When Tom Layward’s wife had an affair twelve years ago, he resolved to leave her as soon as his youngest child left the nest. Now, while driving his college-bound daughter to Pittsburgh, he remembers his promise to himself. He is also on the run from his own health issues and a forced leave from work.

    So, rather than returning to his wife in Westchester, Tom keeps driving west, with the vague plan of visiting people from his past—an old college friend, his ex-girlfriend, his brother, his son—en route, maybe, to California. He’s moving towards a future he hasn’t even envisioned, while he considers his past and the choices he’s made that have brought him to this moment.

    Ben Markovits was born and raised in Texas, and later lived in London and Berlin. He studied at Yale University and the University of Oxford. After graduating, he became a professional basketball player in Landshut, Germany, where he played against a young Dirk Nowitzki.

    Markovits has authored eleven novels, including Fathers and Daughters, You Don’t Have to Live Like This, and The Sidekick. In addition to his books, he has published essays, stories, poetry, and reviews in notable publications such as The Guardian, Granta, The Paris Review, and The New York Times.

    In 2013, Granta recognized him as one of their Best of Young British Novelists. He received the Eccles British Library Writer in Residence Award and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize in 2015. Currently, he lives in London and teaches creative writing at Royal Holloway, University of London.

    Discover your next favorite book and dive into a world of curated, exciting reads by purchasing through my links. You’ll have access to a diverse selection of books that I’ve personally vetted to ensure quality and enjoyment. Additionally, by supporting these selections, you’ll help me continue to provide you with more personalized recommendations. I earn a small commission from your purchase, which allows me to buy and share even more books with you. Your support truly makes a difference!

    ×
    Sing, Unburied, Sing

    Read: October 2024

    Get this book

    Sing, Unburied, Sing

    by Jesmyn Ward

    I started reading Jesmyn Ward‘s novel Sing, Unburied, Sing today. The New York Times selected it as one of the best books of the 21st century and awarded it the National Book Award. According to The New York Times, Jesmyn Ward‘s historic second National Book Award winner is “perfectly poised for the moment.” It’s an intimate portrait of three generations of a family and an epic tale of hope and struggle.

    Jojo is thirteen years old and is trying to understand what it means to be a man. He has several father figures to learn from, including his Black grandfather, Pop. However, Jojo’s understanding is complicated by other men in his life: his absent White father, Michael, who is being released from prison; his absent White grandfather, Big Joseph, who refuses to acknowledge him; and the memories of his deceased uncle, Given, who died as a teenager.

    His mother, Leonie, is inconsistent in her and her toddler daughter’s lives. She is a flawed mother in constant conflict with herself and those around her. She is Black, and her children’s father is White. She wants to be a better mother but struggles to prioritize her children over her own needs, particularly her drug use. Tormented and comforted by visions of her deceased brother, which only come to her when she’s high, Leonie is embattled in ways that reflect the harsh reality of her circumstances.

    When their father is released from prison, Leonie takes her kids and a friend in her car and drives north to Mississippi and Parchman Farm, the State Penitentiary. At Parchman, there is another thirteen-year-old boy, the ghost of a deceased inmate who carries the ugly history of the South with him in his wanderings. With his supernatural presence, this ghostly figure also has something to teach Jojo about fathers and sons, legacies, violence, and love.

    Described as a majestic and unforgettable family story, ‘Sing, Unburied, Sing‘ is rich with Ward‘s distinctive, lyrical language. As noted by The Philadelphia Inquirer, her unique narrative style takes readers on ‘an odyssey through rural Mississippi’s past and present.’

    ×
    Corey Fah Does Social Mobility

    Read: February 2024

    Get this book

    Corey Fah Does Social Mobility

    by Isabel Waidner

    Today, I began reading “Corey Fah Does Social Mobility: A Novel” by Isabel Waidner. The book is about Corey Fah, a writer whose novel has just won the Fictionalization of Social Evils prize. Despite this achievement, the trophy and funds with the award still need to be in reach. The novel celebrates radical queer survival and challenges false notions of success.

    Corey, their partner Drew, and their pet spider, Bambi Pavok, embark on a quest to find an elusive trophy with neon-beige color and UFO-like qualities. This journey takes them back to their childhood in the forest and includes a stint on a reality TV show. While facing the horrors of wormholes and time loops, Corey discovers the difference between a prize and a gift in a complex way.

    Following the Goldsmiths Prize–winning Sterling Karat Gold, Isabel Waidner’s bold and buoyant new novel is about coming into one’s own, the labor of love, the tendency of history to repeat itself, and what ensues when a large amount of cultural capital is suddenly deposited in a place it has never been before.

    ×
    The Antidote

    Read: October 2025

    Get this book

    The Antidote: A Novel

    by Karen Russell

    Karen Russell‘s The Antidote, a finalist in the fiction category for the 2025 National Book Award, serves as a profound reckoning with a nation’s tendency to forget. It addresses the settler amnesia and deliberate omissions that have been passed down through generations, revealing not only horrors but also shimmering possibilities. The Antidote resonates with urgent warnings about our current climate emergency, prompting readers to reflect on what might have been and what is still possible.

    The Antidote opens on Black Sunday, as a historic dust storm ravages the fictional town of Uz, Nebraska. But Uz is already collapsing—not just under the weight of the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl drought but beneath its own violent histories.

    The Antidote follows a “Prairie Witch,” whose body serves as a bank vault for peoples’ memories and secrets; a Polish wheat farmer who learns how quickly a hoarded blessing can become a curse; his orphan niece, a basketball star and witch’s apprentice in furious flight from her grief; a voluble scarecrow; and a New Deal photographer whose time-traveling camera threatens to reveal both the town’s secrets and its fate.

    Karen Russell is the author of six fiction books, including the New York Times bestsellers Swamplandia! and Vampires in the Lemon Grove. She is a MacArthur Fellow, a Guggenheim Fellow, and a Pulitzer Prize finalist.

    She has received two National Magazine Awards for Fiction, the Shirley Jackson Award, the 2023 Bottari Lattes Grinzane Prize, and the 2024 Mary McCarthy Prize, and was selected for the National Book Foundation’s 5 Under 35 award and The New Yorker’s 20 Under 40 list (she is now decisively over forty).

    She serves on the board of Street Books, a mobile library for people living outdoors. Born and raised in Miami, Florida, she lives in Portland, Oregon, with her husband, son, and daughter.

    Discover your next favorite book and dive into a world of curated, exciting reads by purchasing through my links. You’ll have access to a diverse selection of books that I’ve personally vetted to ensure quality and enjoyment. Additionally, by supporting these selections, you’ll help me continue to provide you with more personalized recommendations. I earn a small commission from your purchase, which allows me to buy and share even more books with you. Your support truly makes a difference!

    ×
    The Rest Is Memory: A Novel

    Read: January 2025

    Get this book

    The Rest Is Memory: A Novel

    by Lily Tuck

    Today, I dove into “The Rest Is Memory: A Novel” by Lily Tuck, and it’s already leaving a powerful impression. This poignant tale follows a young Catholic girl’s harrowing journey to Auschwitz, woven in a captivating Rashomon-style narrative showcasing Tuck’s brilliance as a storyteller. Esquire has rightly placed it on their list of Best Books for Fall 2024, and I can see why.

    In Tuck‘s skilled hands, “The Rest Is Memory” transforms into an unforgettable piece of historical reclamation, breathing life into an innocent soul who has long been remembered only through a haunting triptych of photographs. It’s a journey that promises to linger in my thoughts long after I’ve turned the last page.

    In this mesmerizing novel by Lily Tuck, we first glimpse fourteen-year-old Czeslawa riding on the back of a boy’s motorcycle. Tuck imagines Czeslawa’s upbringing in a small Polish village before her world imploded in late 1942. Stripped of her modest belongings, she arrives at Auschwitz shorn and bearing the tattoo number 26947. Shortly after, she is photographed. Three months later, she is dead.

    How did this happen to an ordinary Polish citizen? This is the question Tuck grapples with in this haunting narrative, which frames Czeslawa’s story within the tragic context of the six million Poles who perished during the German occupation. A decade before writing The Rest Is Memory“, Tuck read an obituary of the photographer Wilhelm Brasse, who took over 40,000 pictures of Auschwitz prisoners—including three of Czeslawa Kwoka, a Catholic girl from rural southeastern Poland. Tuck cut out these photos and kept them, determined to learn more about Czeslawa. However, she could only gather the barest facts: the village she came from, the transport she was on, that she was accompanied by her mother and neighbors, her tattoo number, and the date of her death. Tuck crafts a remarkable kaleidoscope of imagination from this scant evidence, something only our greatest novelists can achieve.

    Susanna Moore described the novel as “Beautifully written, all the while instilling a sense of horror.” Tuck’s language swirls around the reader, yet no word is out of place. The subtly rotating images tumble forth, accelerating as we learn about Czeslawa’s tragic time in Auschwitz, as well as the lives of real individuals, including the brutal Commandant Rudolf Höss, his unconscionable wife Hedwig, psychiatrist and child rescuer Janusz Korczak, and the sharp Polish short story writer Tadeusz Borowski. Although we know Czeslawa’s fate, we must keep turning the pages, thoroughly captivated by Tuck’s nearly otherworldly prose.

    When you purchase a book through one of my links, I earn a small commission that helps support my passion for reading. This contribution allows me to buy even more books to share with you, creating an incredible cycle of discovering great reads together! Your support truly makes a difference!

    ×
    1944: FDR and the Year That Changed History

    Read: October 2019

    Get this book

    1944: FDR and the Year That Changed History

    by Jay Winik

    1944: FDR and the Year That Changed History by Jay Winik is a book that I had put off reading several times. When I finally did read it, I could not remember why I had not read it sooner. Had I gone to graduate school and become a professor, it might have been the type of book I might write, and I certainly would have had on my list of books for my classes. 

    As The NY Times wrote, “Jay Winik brings to life in gripping detail the year 1944, which determined the outcome of World War II and put more pressure than any other on an ailing yet determined President Roosevelt.” Reading a book about events five years before my birth that transformed the world I live in becomes an easy page-turner.

    It was not inevitable that World War II would end as it did or that it would even end well. Nineteen forty-four was a year that could have stymied the Allies and cemented Hitler’s waning power. Instead it saved those democracies – but with a fateful cost. Now, in a superbly told story, Jay Winik, the acclaimed author of April 1865 and The Great Upheaval, captures the epic images and extraordinary history as never before.

    1944 witnessed a series of titanic events: FDR at the pinnacle of his wartime leadership as well as his reelection, the planning of Operation Overlord with Churchill and Stalin, the unprecedented D-Day invasion, the liberation of Paris, and the horrific Battle of the Bulge, and the tumultuous conferences that finally shaped the coming peace. But on the way, millions of more lives were still at stake as President Roosevelt was exposed to mounting evidence of the most grotesque crime in history, the Final Solution. Just as the Allies were landing in Normandy, the Nazis were accelerating the killing of millions of European Jews.

    Winik shows how escalating pressures fell on an all but dying Roosevelt, whose rapidly deteriorating health was a closely guarded secret. Here then, as with D-Day, was a momentous decision for the president. Was winning the war the best way to rescue the Jews? Was a rescue even possible? Or would it get in the way of defeating Hitler? In a year when even the most audacious undertakings were within the world’s reach, including the liberation of Europe, one challenge – saving Europe’s Jews – seemed to remain beyond Roosevelt’s grasp.

    I recommend this book.

    Subscribe

    Contact Us

    ×