Flowers Everywhere

Estimated reading time: 14 minutes, 17 seconds

From One Rose to a
Home Full of Flowers

My beloved wife, Jan, was arriving home for the last time on April 10, 2021. I asked her how I could make her last trip home more comfortable, and she replied that she wanted to be surrounded by flowers upon her arrival. However, two days before her release from the hospital, Rabbi Renee, my sons, and Dr. Saksena delivered the heartbreaking news that hospice care was the only option left. Dr. Strair, her other oncologist, had explained that they couldn’t effectively treat Jan’s Lymphoma due to COVID-19, and the Lymphoma prevented them from treating COVID-19. He stated that her Lymphoma was very aggressive, and they had tried three treatments, but the efficacy of each new treatment had declined. Dr. Strair said there was little they could do even without COVID-19.

“I promise, my dear,” I said, barely above a whisper, “that our boys and I will fill our home with flowers.” I looked at her, lying in the hospital bed, hooked up to tubes and machines, her once vibrant eyes now dull and tired. My heart ached with deep sadness, knowing that due to Lymphoma and COVID, she was coming home for hospice care with only weeks to live. Despite the weight of the situation, I was determined to bring a little bit of joy to her last days.

As I made this promise, I couldn’t help but remember the day we first met. It was a cold November day, and I went out in the morning to get milk and bagels. I saw that a Bodega had roses, so I bought one and a card. I had altered the words on the card that said I like you to I love you. When Jan accepted the rose and read the card, she whispered, “Me too. I love you,” her voice quivering with emotion. At that moment, we both knew we had discovered something extraordinary. We hugged each other tightly, not wanting to let go. Our lips locked in a deep and passionate kiss that made my heart skip a beat. Now, as I sat beside her during my last visit to Overlook Hospital, I couldn’t believe that everything had come to this.

Less than 48 hours after Dr. Saksena confirmed that hospice was the only option, I found myself navigating the familiar halls of the hospital, knowing my way around like the back of my hand. She had been hospitalized so often since her first admission on January 1, 2020, that the staff recognized me and greeted me with nods and smiles of acknowledgment. Despite her diagnosis of Lymphoma, I had always believed that she would beat the odds and survive, even after she almost died a week ago. But now, as I held her hand and watched her chest rise and fall with each labored breath, I knew that our time together was coming to an end.

Jan was dozing on and off while I gathered everything I needed to bring home from the hospital. I sent a message to my son Mike, who was planning to visit Jan that evening, to confirm his timing and see if he could take home any items I couldn’t fit in my car. He replied that he was leaving and would be at the hospital within the hour. I held Jan’s hand and felt the strength of our love as if our circulatory systems were intertwined and growing stronger with every beat of our hearts.

I am leaving so that Mike can visit you,” I said as I leaned over the guardrails on the bed and kissed her lips. “I love you!” Jan’s eyes opened, and she smiled a little. Despite feeling anxious, I smiled, too. That felt nice,” Jan said. I replied that all of her sweet kisses had been lovely. “Yes, they have been. But, when you reached over, you grazed my boobs, and I felt not only your love but like I was a woman again.” Foolishly, I apologized. Richard, don’t apologize; caress them for me one last time.” I rubbed her hospital gown. If no one else is here, pull the curtain around the bed.” As I did, she struggled to pull the gown off her chest. I helped her even though it was awkward. Her naked breasts looked the same as the first time I had seen them. “Kiss them, fondle them, enjoy them,” she commanded. “Thank you for still loving my boobs even though they sag to my belly button!” I kissed her lips and then kissed and sucked her nipples.

As I walked to my car, I felt both aroused and worried about Jan. I knew she didn’t have much time left, and the thought of having to live without her filled me with despair. I wiped away my tears as I fastened my seatbelt and prayed to God for strength. “Please help me love Jan more than ever and grant her peace and comfort,” I screamed, feeling as though my heart was breaking into a million pieces.

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Orbital

Read: December 2023

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Orbital: A Novel

by Samantha Harvey

Today, I started reading “Orbital” by Samantha Harvey. “Orbital” is a slender novel with epic power that captures a single day in the lives of six women and men hurtling through space. The author’s prose is poetic and impossible to put aside. Watching the Earth through the eyes of space travelers is refreshing. If I finish reading it by Sunday, it will be the 78th book I’ve read this year or the first one of 2024.

They are not going towards the moon or the vast unknown but are orbiting our planet. These astronauts and cosmonauts come from various countries, including America, Russia, Italy, Britain, and Japan. They are selected for one of the last space station missions before the program is dismantled. They have left their lives behind to travel over seventeen thousand miles an hour as the earth reels below.

Throughout the book, we catch glimpses of their earthly lives through brief communications with their families, photos, and talismans. We watch them whip up dehydrated meals, float in gravity-free sleep, and exercise in regimented routines to prevent their muscles from atrophying. We also witness them form bonds that will stand between them and utter solitude. Most importantly, we are with them as they behold and record their silent blue planet. Their experiences of sixteen sunrises and sunsets and the bright, blinking constellations of the galaxy are breathtakingly beautiful and surprisingly intimate. Additionally, we get to see the marks of civilization far below, encrusted on the planet on which we live.

It is a profound, contemplative, and gorgeous book that eloquently meditates on space. Moreover, it is a moving elegy reflecting our humanity, environment, and planet.


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

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The missing hours

Read: February 2022

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The Missing Hours

by Julia Dahl

The Missing Hours by Julia Dahl is a novel I chose to read as I was looking for something different from the recent books I have read, and a fellow reader recommended this one. The Missing Hours is a novel about obsession, privilege, and the explosive consequences of one violent act. Like a bomb exploding, the ripple effects of the novel’s primary event impact the victim and her family, friends, and the larger community.

A trigger warning to all readers, the violent act in the novel is a sexual assault that is filmed and shared. Claudia, the victim, has no memory initially of what happened. She had been drinking and wearing clothes that she liked to wear. None of her choices is an excuse for those who victimized her.

She cannot remember what happened until a friend receives the video.

Being wealthy and social media savvy, she is aware that reporting the assault before or after the video is released would only allow her to be re-victimized. Her choices and how she seeks to secure justice make this a book I enjoyed and highly recommended.

This is the Goodreads overview.

From a distance, Claudia Castro has it all: a famous family, a trust fund, thousands of Instagram followers, and a spot in NYU’s first-year class. But look closer, and things are messier: her parents are separating, she’s just been humiliated by a sleazy documentary, and her sister is about to have a baby with a man she barely knows.

Claudia starts the school year resolved to find a path toward something positive, maybe even meaningful – and then, one drunken night, everything changes. Reeling, her memory hazy, Claudia cuts herself off from her family, seeking solace in a new friendship. But when the rest of school comes back from spring break, Claudia is missing.

Suddenly, the whole city is trying to piece together the hours of that terrible night.

From the critically acclaimed author of Invisible City and Conviction, The Missing Hours is a novel about obsession, privilege, and the explosive consequences of one violent act.

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Time of the Child

Read: December 2024

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Time of the Child

by Niall Williams

Today, I dove into “Time of the Child” by Niall Williams, and I can already tell it will be a journey worth taking. This beautifully crafted novel, penned by the same author who brought us “This Is Happiness,” unfolds during a magical Christmas in the quaint Irish town of Faha. At its heart is a touching story about a father and daughter that beautifully explores the idea that miracles can touch our lives, no matter our beliefs.

As I turned the pages, I thought about how this enchanting tale would evoke love’s profound and transformative power when I light my Hanukkah candles. It promises to be a genuinely uplifting read!

Doctor Jack Troy was born and raised in Faha, but his responsibilities toward the sick and his care for the dying have always set him apart from the town. His eldest daughter, Ronnie, has grown up in her father’s shadow and remains there, having missed one chance at love and declined another marriage proposal from an unsuitable man.

During the Advent season of 1962, as the town prepared for Christmas, Ronnie and Doctor Troy’s lives were turned upside down when a baby arrived on their doorstep. As winter passes, the lives of the father and daughter, their understanding of family, and their roles in the community are changed forever.

Set throughout one December in the same village as Williams’ beloved “This Is Happiness,” “Time of the Child” offers a tender return to Faha for readers familiar with its charms and serves as a heartwarming welcome for new readers exploring it for the first time.



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The Bully Pulpit

Read: October 2019

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The Bully Pulpit

by Doris Kearns Goodwin

The Bully Pulpit by Doris Kearns Goodwin is a history of the first decade of the Progressive era told by focusing on the intense friendship of Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft.

Although I had read many books about Theodore Roosevelt, I had limited knowledge about Taft until I read this book. Reading about their friendship and its eventual collapse helped me to understand both of these presidents and the times in which they lived in a way I had not understood previously.

The Bully Pulpit is also the story of the muckraking press, which arouses the spirit of reform that helps Roosevelt push the government to shed its laissez-faire attitude toward robber barons, corrupt politicians, and corporate exploiters of our natural resources. The muckrakers are portrayed through the greatest group of journalists ever assembled at one magazine—Ida Tarbell, Ray Stannard Baker, Lincoln Steffens, and William Allen White—teamed under the mercurial genius of publisher S. S. McClure.

Goodwin’s narrative is founded upon a wealth of primary materials. The correspondence of more than four hundred letters between Roosevelt and Taft begins in their early thirties and ends only months before Roosevelt’s death. Edith Roosevelt and Nellie Taft kept diaries. The muckrakers wrote hundreds of letters to one another, kept journals, and wrote their memoirs. The letters of Captain Archie Butt, who served as a personal aide to both Roosevelt and Taft, provide an intimate view of both men.

I recommend this book without reservations.

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Ripe: A Novel

Read: July 2023

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Ripe: A Novel by Sarah Rose Etter

by Sarah Rose Etter

I started reading “Ripe: A Novel” by Sarah Rose Etter today. This book has won awards and is highly praised by Roxane Gay for its uniqueness and brilliance. It tells the story of a woman in Silicon Valley who must choose how much she will sacrifice for success. Fans of “My Year of Rest and Relaxation” and “Her Body and Other Parties” will enjoy this surreal tale.

Cassie has worked at a Silicon Valley start-up for a year but feels stuck in a corporate nightmare. The long hours, toxic bosses, and unethical projects are taking a toll on her. She has a hard time reconciling the stark contrast between the abundance of wealth and the poverty and suffering that exist side by side in the city. Cassie observes Ivy League graduates complaining about snack options in a conference room overlooking unhoused people bathing in the bay. She’s witnessed start-up burnouts who throw themselves in front of commuter trains and men who light themselves on fire in the streets.

Even though Cassie is often by herself, she never feels entirely alone. Since she can remember, she has had a tiny black hole that is always with her. This black hole feeds off her feelings of sadness and worry, getting bigger or smaller depending on how much she struggles. While it watches her, it also waits patiently. Its powerful force keeps pulling Cassie closer as everything in her life seems to fall apart.

Cassie finds herself pregnant unexpectedly while dealing with her CEO’s illegal demands. She must weigh the benefits of Silicon Valley against the risks. Ripe follows the journey of one millennial woman through the absurdities of modern life, offering a sharp yet vulnerable, unsettling yet darkly comic commentary on our late-capitalist hellscape.


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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20 Under 40

Read: January 2019

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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.

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