My Apolytus Moment

Estimated reading time: 21 minutes, 12 seconds

Solo At the Flower Show – June 2021

“Richard, I want you to go to the Flower Show in June,” Jan insisted. We already have tickets and hotel reservations.” As her caregiver during the final moments of her life, I was consumed with her care and had little time to ponder my plans for early June. I would nod and agree, but deep down, I knew I might be unable to make it. Fortunately, Mike and Elyssa offered to accompany me, which kept Jan from bringing it up again.

After Jan’s passing, the first five weeks went by in a blur. I attempted to coordinate plans with Mike and Elyssa but was unsuccessful. The week before the Flower Show, I accepted I might have to go alone, which was OK. However, we faced a fierce heatwave with high temperatures and humidity that soared to the upper 90s. Though I still wanted to go to the Flower Show, the scorching weather made me rethink my decision. But then, to make matters worse, my apartment’s air conditioner condenser stopped working, and the interior of my apartment felt as hot as the streets outside.

“Sorry to inform you, Mr. Brown, that I won’t be able to arrange for a new condenser until Monday or Tuesday. Moreover, the installation process might take a day or two,” Kevin’s voice was apologetic as he conveyed the news. The announcement was disheartening, and I felt a wave of disappointment wash over me, like the plants in my apartment that had started to wilt. 

However, to my surprise, Kevin’s kindness shone through as he offered me a temporary window unit for my bedroom. It was a much-needed reprieve from the sweltering heat, but only for one room. Plus, it was noisier than the central AC. As we talked, I told Kevin I was attending the Flower Show on June 7th and 8th. I had already booked a hotel for those days and bought tickets for Tuesday afternoon, the 7th. I expressed my concern to Kevin that I might not be around on Monday or Tuesday to receive the new condenser. 

Kevin reassured me that my absence wouldn’t be a problem, as he had a master key. He put my worries to rest, and I felt grateful to have such a helpful and reliable person.

I gathered a few items for a two-night stay. I mistakenly thought the Prius belonged to my wife as I started the car and drove out of the Miln Street parking lot. I managed to avoid most of the traffic, except for the time it took to transfer from the Parkway to the Turnpike. I drove in solitude until I arrived at The Marriott Courtyard Philadelphia South at the Navy Yard, where I was relieved to have made reservations in January. The desk clerk informed me that no rooms were available, but I was grateful for my early planning. I handed over my credit card and driver’s license and requested just one key.

My room was tastefully designed and had all the necessary amenities. Before dinner, I unpacked and read a few chapters of Celestial Navigation by Anne Tyler, which my wife had recommended. The novel’s protagonist, Jeremy Pauling, who had never left home, suffered from a personal tragedy. Though I was far from making a drastic choice never to leave my house, I found the book to be a compelling reminder of the importance of embracing life’s many adventures.

After a restless night, I got up early for a walk. I was excited about attending the Flower Show in the afternoon, but my iPhone buzzed with news that it was closed for the afternoon session. Severe thunderstorms in the next few hours were the reason. I read for an hour or two as the rain pounded the windows. Mid-afternoon, the rain stopped, and the sun breached the clouds. Could the Flower Show open now that the rain was over?

I laced my walking shoes and headed to FDR Park. As I approached the entrance, I met several people who had made the same choice. “It is still closed,” I told them as I reached the gate before them. While we complained about being unable to see the show, two high school championship baseball games were underway in the park. One of the women opined, “If they can play ball, why can’t we see the flowers?

I wished them the best as I left the park and walked on Broad Street by the baseball stadium and other sports facilities. If I went two blocks to the stadium entrance and turned right, I could find the hotel and see more of the neighborhood. As I turned, I looked over my shoulder and saw thick black thunderheads racing towards me. I walked as fast as I could, but the derecho unleashed its rain faster than my feet could run. Despite being soaked to the bone, I laughed aloud as if Jan were next to me, “Honey, I did it again!”

Once I had peeled off my wet clothes and changed, I went to dinner at the hotel. While waiting for my dinner, I did not think about how I would be unable to attend this year’s Flower Show but how much Jan liked flowers and gardens. After giving her a final kiss, I accepted that she was not returning. My sons and I briefly discussed planting trees in one of their yards. I shook my head as the staff delivered my crab cake dinner. “Is the dinner OK?” he asked. Yes, I said, probably louder than necessary. Planting a tree, maybe more, is what I needed to do to keep Jan’s memory alive and prove that love never dies! I pulled out my iPhone and scanned the calendar. Jan’s birthday in 2022 was on a Sunday. Perfect!

Blood, Sweat, Tears, and Treasure – April 2024

On April 7, 2024, Temple Sha’arey Shalom and Hanson Park organized a Mitzvah Day, open to the Cranford community and aimed at cleaning up the park. Despite being a small congregation, the event was a grand success. As I walked towards the park, memories flooded in, reminding me of the day I decided to create Jan’s Memorial Garden in Hanson Park.

It all started when I returned from a rained-out Flower Show and decided to stroll through Hanson Park. As I approached the triangle, I thought it would be the perfect spot to plant a tree in honor of Jan. Although I knew it was impossible, I hoped for a sign from her.

As I was taking a walk, something magical happened. The rain ceased, the clouds parted, and the sunlight filled only the park while the downpour impacted the rest of the area. It was strange that only the park remained dry. I always believed that Jan and I shared a portion of each other’s souls, and that part of my soul vanished with Jan when she passed away. While standing in Hanson Park, I could feel Jan’s spirit with me, soaking wet, and I knew then that creating Jan’s Memorial Garden was the right thing to do. I felt her presence with me through my journey of grief. Standing next to the triangle, I felt Jan’s presence with me, and it seemed like she had sent me a message of approval. When I got home, I immediately emailed Ellen to express my desire to plant a tree in Hanson Park.

On Mitzvah Day, when I arrived at Hanson Park around noon, I saw a young mother with her kids enjoying the park. When she saw volunteers cleaning the park, she kindly offered to help and volunteered her and her children’s assistance.

As she was preparing to leave, Ellen, the park’s president, asked if the volunteer was a park member and had received the Arbor Day flyer. Unfortunately, the volunteer had not received the flyer, nor was she a park member. I immediately offered to walk her to the registration table to ensure she received the flyer and the membership form. When I handed her the flyer, she appeared overjoyed and shared how much she loved the park.

She said, “One day, I was here, and we were standing by the bench behind you, and a Robin flew over and sat down. My kids were amazed that it did not fly away. I read the inscription. When I got home, I googled Jan Lilien and was impressed by what her husband had done and wrote about her.

Her words touched my heart, and tears welled in my throat. She paused and looked at me for a moment. Oh, are you Jan’s husband?” I replied firmly and confidently, “Yes, that’s correct.

The woman spoke gently, her eyes filled with warmth and admiration as she looked at me. I never had the chance to meet Jan in person, but your heartfelt inscription and writings have made me feel as if I knew her all along,” she said. She embraced me warmly. What you’ve done to honor her memory is truly remarkable. The memorial garden you’ve created is a breathtaking and magical place unlike any other.

I heard her words, and they warmed my heart. It reminded me of a significant truth – that love never dies. The warmth I felt in my heart was overwhelming, and it made me realize that even the simplest gestures can significantly impact someone’s life. This moment is something I will cherish forever, as it gave me hope for a better tomorrow.

Despite the blood, sweat, tears, and treasure it cost to build Jan’s Memorial Garden, I knew it was worth every penny. Having a purpose to help me in my grief journey was paying dividends I dreamed of but never imagined would happen. This moment will stay with me forever, giving me hope for a better tomorrow.

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Dogs and Monsters: Stories

Read: October 2024

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Dogs and Monsters: Stories

by Mark Haddon

Today, I started reading Dogs and Monsters: Stories by Mark Haddon. The collection features eight captivating and imaginative stories that blend Greek myths with contemporary dystopian narratives. The stories explore themes of mortality, moral choices, and various forms of love, including romantic, familial, and self-love. Haddon’s clear-eyed vision is infused with deep empathy.

In addition, Haddon’s fluid prose showcases his remarkable powers of observation, both of the physical world and the inner workings of the human psyche. Greek myths have fascinated people for millennia with their timeless appeal and enduring lessons about fate, hubris, and life’s uncertainties. In Dogs and Monsters: Stories, Mark Haddon delves into the heart of these ancient fables and presents them in a fresh light. For instance, in one story, the dawn goddess Eos requests that Zeus grant her lover Tithonus eternal life but forgets to ask for eternal youth. In “The Quiet Limit of the World,” Haddon imagines Tithonus’s life as he ages over thousands of years, transforming this cautionary tale about tempting the gods into a spellbinding meditation on observing death from the outside. This tale ultimately explores how carnal love evolves into something more profound and poignant over time.

In “The Mother‘s Story,” Haddon reinterprets the myth of the Minotaur, born of the monstrous lust of King Minos’s wife, Pasiphaë. He turns it into a heartbreaking parable of a mother’s love for a damaged child and the more tangible monstrosities of patriarchy. In “D.O.G.Z.,” the story of Actaeon, who was transformed into a stag after glimpsing the naked goddess Diana and was subsequently torn apart by his hunting dogs, becomes a visceral metaphor for the continuum of human and animal behavior.

Other stories in Dogs and Monsters: Stories play with contemporary mythic tropes—such as genetic engineering, attempts to escape the future, and the cruelty of adolescent ostracism. These stories showcase how modern humans are subject to the same capriciousness that concerned the Greeks but in a fresh and intriguing light. Haddon‘s tales cover a wide range of themes, from the mythic to the domestic, from ancient Greece to the present day, and explore love alongside stories of cruelty. They take readers from battlefields to bed and breakfasts and from dogs in space to doors between worlds, all bound together by profound sympathy and an insight into how human beings think, feel, and act when pushed to their limits.

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The Brighter the Light

Read: June 2022

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The Brighter the Light

by Mary Ellen Taylor

The Brighter the Light by Mary Ellen Taylor was my eighty-ninth book since the beginning of 2019. After reading about Thomas Cromwell, I needed a change of pace. With the start of the Hurricane season, it seemed as good a time as any to read a novel by a fellow Southerner. That the book is also an “evocative dual-timeline novel detailing one woman’s journey to discover the hidden stories of her family’s seaside resort” seemed a perfect match.

I highly recommend this book. As a Southerner, I found the revealing of the hidden secrets accomplished in a style that makes this a page-turner.

The Goodreads summary provides an overview.

When a shipwreck surfaces, old secrets are sure to follow.

Or so goes the lore in Ivy Neale’s hometown of Nags Head, North Carolina. When Ivy inherits her family’s beachfront cottage upon her grandmother’s death, she knows returning to Nags Head means facing the best friend and the boyfriend who betrayed her years ago.

But then a winter gale uncovers the shipwreck of local legend—and Ivy soon begins to stumble across more skeletons in the closet than just her own. Amid the cottage’s clutter are clues from her grandmother’s past at the enchanting seaside resort her family once owned. One fateful summer in 1950, the arrival of a dazzling singer shook the staff and guests alike—and not everyone made it to fall.

As Ivy contends with broken relationships and a burgeoning romance in the present, the past threatens to sweep her away. But as she uncovers the strength of her grandmother and the women who came before her, she realizes she is like the legendary shipwreck: the sands may shift around her, but she has found her home here by the sea.


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The Fraud: A Novel

Read: December 2023

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The Fraud: A Novel

by Zadie Smith

I started reading The Fraud: A Novel by Zadie Smith today. The book is a kaleidoscopic work of historical fiction that revolves around a legal trial that divided Victorian England. The story is set in 1873, where Mrs. Eliza Touchet, a Scottish housekeeper and cousin by marriage of a once-famous novelist, William Ainsworth, lives with him for thirty years. Mrs. Touchet is interested in literature, justice, abolitionism, class, and her cousin’s wives.

However, she is skeptical of her cousin’s talent, Mr. Charles Dickens’ character, and England’s facades, in which nothing is as it seems.

On the other hand, Andrew Bogle grew up enslaved on the Hope Plantation in Jamaica. He knows that every lump of sugar comes at a human cost, that the rich deceive the poor, and that people are more easily manipulated than they realize. When Bogle finds himself in London, a star witness in a celebrated case of imposture, he knows that his future depends on telling the right story.

The “Tichborne Trial” captivates Mrs. Touchet and all of England. The trial involves a lower-class butcher from Australia who claimed he was the rightful heir of a sizable estate and title. The question is whether Sir Roger Tichborne is genuinely who he says he is or whether he’s a fraud. In a world of hypocrisy and self-deception, deciding what’s real is complicated for Mrs. Touchet and Mr. Bogle.

The Fraud is a dazzling novel about truth and fiction, Jamaica and Britain, fraudulence and authenticity, and the mystery of “other people.” It’s based on historical events.


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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The Immortal Irishman

Read: October 2019

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The Immortal Irishman

by Timothy Egan

 

The Immortal Irishman: The Irish Revolutionary Who Became an American Hero by Timothy Egan is a book I started reading as The Worst Hard Timesincluded the first fifty pages.

I often only read a few pages and then return the book to the e-library. The Immortal Irishman was not the case, and I could not stop reading and borrowed the book immediately.

I had never heard of Thomas Francis Meagher or his life in Ireland or America. The story was fascinating, unique, and essential.

The Irish-American story, with all its twists and triumphs, is told through the improbable life of one man. A dashing young orator during the Great Famine of the 1840s, in which a million of his Irish countrymen died, Thomas Francis Meagher led a failed uprising against British rule, for which he was banished to a Tasmanian prison colony. He escaped and six months later was heralded in the streets of New York – the revolutionary hero, back from the dead, at the dawn of the great Irish immigration to America.

Meagher’s rebirth in America included his leading the newly formed Irish Brigade from New York in many of the fiercest battles of the Civil War – Bull Run, Antietam, Fredericksburg. Twice shot from his horse while leading charges, left for dead in the Virginia mud, Meagher’s dream was that Irish-American troops, seasoned by war, would return to Ireland and liberate their homeland from British rule.

The hero’s last chapter, as territorial governor of Montana, was a romantic quest for a true home in the far frontier. His death has long been a mystery to which Egan brings haunting, colorful new evidence.

I recommend this book.

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We Are All the Same in the Dark

Read: January 2023

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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.

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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.

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The Hunter: A Novel

Read: March 2024

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The Hunter: A Novel

by Tana French

Today, I began reading “The Hunter: A Novel” by Tana French, often called the Queen of Irish crime fiction. The story takes place in a small village in the West of Ireland during a hot summer. Two men arrive, one returning home and the other seeking riches. However, one of them is also seeking death.

Cal Hooper is a retired Chicago police officer who moved to rural Ireland for a peaceful life. He has built a relationship with a local woman named Lena and has been mentoring Trey Reddy, a troubled teenager on a better path. But when Trey’s long-lost father returns, accompanied by an English millionaire and a plan to find gold in the townland, everything they have built is threatened. Cal and Lena are willing to do whatever it takes to protect Trey, but Trey is not interested in protection. What she wants is revenge.

This novel, written by the acclaimed author described by The New York Times as “in a class by herself,” tells a nuanced and atmospheric tale about what we are willing to do for our loved ones, what we will do for revenge, and what we may have to sacrifice when the two collide.

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