My sister, my mom and me May 1949

My Mother’s Loving Legacy

Living in the Present Filled with Memories

Estimated reading time: 3 minutes, 40 seconds

As I was leaving Apartment 3B for my regular morning walk, I noticed the World Wildlife Fund calendar on the door. The peaceful image of a smiling Giant Panda calmed me as I prepared to head out. I glanced at September 2, 2024, just before turning off the light. This day is unique; it would have been my mother‘s 109th birthday. Balancing my hands full of recyclables, I walked down the hallway, lost in thought. It struck me that my mother had almost reached the remarkable age of 100 – a feat I had once hoped for her and me – ninety-eight years and nearly a half year more make up a rich, meaningful life.

My mother’s teachings have been invaluable, even though I have sometimes forgotten them or not credited her for them at crucial moments. My parents were actively involved in charitable activities, such as delivering food to the Rescue Mission, volunteering for the Council on Aging Meals on Wheels, and supporting the refuge house for abused spouses. Their selfless dedication to these causes left a profound impact on me. I often reflect on their influence, feeling grateful for the values they instilled in me. Unsurprisingly, I have dedicated my career to making the world a better place, a decision that is a testament to their enduring influence on my life.

Meeting Lilah-RaeMy mother endeared herself to friends and family with her gentle and sweet nature, reminiscent of a panda bear, and a charming Southern ladylike demeanor. While I’m not likely to be thought of in the same way, I carry the traits of both my parents within my DNA. I firmly believe in the equality of all individuals and the importance of mutual support. This belief, instilled in me by my mother, has fostered a sense of connection and value for others, making each feel integral and valued in our shared journey.

My mother had four grandsons—Kevin, Steve, Jon, and Mike—and one great-granddaughter, as well as my siblings, David and Becky. I vividly recall a particular moment captured in a photo when my mother, at the age of ninety-five, met Lilah-Rae for the first time. Frozen in Kodachrome, the image perfectly encapsulated the love and warmth that filled the room that day, a testament to the enduring bond of family that we all share and cherish. Unfortunately, neither my mother nor Jan lived to meet Wes and Jack.

Crossword PuzzleAs my mother’s eyes began to weaken with age, my wife, Jon, our oldest son, and I visited her. Occasionally, we would sit together and work on crossword puzzles, providing her with mental stimulation and companionship even when she could not read the clues or see the puzzle. It was a bittersweet reminder that life presents challenges. Still, we must always find ways to adapt and continue living to the fullest, empowering us to be resilient and face life’s challenges head-on.

I have developed a daily routine that involves solving the New York Times mini-crossword before heading out for my walk. This simple act is more than just a mental warm-up; it’s a way for me to connect with my mother’s love for puzzles and to keep her memory alive. It lets me kickstart my brain and prepare for the day ahead. It’s my way of staying mentally sharp and engaged, ensuring I approach each day with vigor and enthusiasm, just as my mother did.

As I ascend the long staircase to the train platform, I ponder my mother’s strength and perseverance. These are attributes I aim to embody, influenced by her example. After my dad‘s passing, my mother lived alone for twenty years and four months. When I last saw her two months before she passed away, she admitted that she thought about him every day. I couldn’t fathom missing someone for such a prolonged duration. Relying on old actuarial tables to predict life expectancy, I was sure Jan would outlive me.

Now, as I approach being a widow for three years, four months, and one day, I still bear the emotional wounds and scars from losing my wife. I wonder if I will find the strength to live alone for the next two decades as my mother did. Yet, each day, I strive to move forward, accepting and embracing the future as best as possible, carrying the hope and optimism that my mother’s example instilled in me, a beacon of light in the face of life’s challenges.

Love is a Magical Force!

Whenever I fall in love, I do so with all my heart and soul, leaving no room for half-steps. My love is unconditional and knows no boundaries. My wife knew and accepted me for who I am. Together, Jan and I created a legacy for ages to come.

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My sister, my mom and me May 1949

Birthdays and Holidays

Living in the Present Filled with Memories

Estimated reading time: 3 minutes, 40 seconds

Individuals born on specific holidays, such as July 4th or December 25th, often experience a sense of overshadowing, feeling as though the more significant holiday festivities diminish their birthday celebrations. In my early childhood years, I held a different perspective. I perceived my parents’ birthdays, on September 2nd and November 28th, as special holidays dedicated to honoring and celebrating them. I remember feeling a sense of pride and joy, knowing that everyone celebrated their birthdays. It’s fascinating how, during our formative years, dates, times, and calendars carry profound significance and shape our perceptions of events and celebrations.

As a child, my grandmother taught me to associate my parent’s birthdays with the nearest holiday so I would remember their birthdays, and this connection became deeply ingrained in me at a young age, around 6 or 7 years old. In 1957, I vividly remember studying the wall calendars, eagerly checking when significant dates would occur—that year, my birthday coincided with a Saturday. As I flipped through the calendar, I noticed that the red color denoting Labor Day and Thanksgiving matched the hue of my hair at the time. I excitedly informed my teacher that my parents must be so significant that they had national holidays. She explained that Labor Day falls on the first Monday and Thanksgiving on the fourth Thursday, with the actual date changing annually. Frustrated and embarrassed, I consulted the calendar, determined to prove my point.

With age, I have come to understand and appreciate the accuracy of my teacher’s perspective. Despite my parents’ birthdays aligning in some years with holidays, it’s clear now that the two hold distinct significance. It’s interesting to note that in 2024, my parents’ birthdays will once again coincide with the holidays. This journey of understanding the evolving importance of dates and holidays has been a reflective one, shaping my perceptions and experiences.

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My sister, my mom and me May 1949
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My sister, my mom and me May 1949
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Commitment: A novel

Read: April 2023

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Commitment: A Novel

by Mona Simpson

The novel Commitment by Mona Simpson delves into the complexities of family and duty when a parent falls ill. It sheds light on the significant impact of untreated mental health crises and highlights the under-appreciated role of friends in shaping the lives of children left to their own devices.

A hardworking single mother, Diane Aziz falls into a deep depression after dropping off her oldest son, Walter, at college. Despite her struggles, her closest friend is vital in keeping the family together and their mother’s dreams alive.

This is a story of one family’s struggle to navigate the crisis of their lives, a struggle that may resonate with many readers. Walter discovers a newfound passion for architecture, but financial struggles threaten his academic pursuits. Meanwhile, Lina fights to attend an Ivy League school, and Donny, the youngest sibling, battles a dangerous drug addiction.

As someone with different personal experiences, I still found Commitment to affirm the importance of biological and chosen families.


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The Vegetarian: A Novel

Read: October 2024

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The Vegetarian: A Novel

by Han Kang

Today, I started reading The Vegetarian: A Novel by Han Kang, Winner of the 2024 Nobel Prize in Literature. The novel also won The International Booker Prize and is one of The New York Times’s 100 Best Books of the 21st Century. Celebrated by critics worldwide, The Vegetarian is a darkly allegorical, Kafka-esque tale of power, obsession, and one woman’s struggle to break free from the violence both without and within her.

Before the nightmares began, Yeong-hye and her husband lived an ordinary, controlled life. But the dreams—invasive images of blood and brutality—torture her, driving Yeong-hye to purge her mind and renounce eating meat altogether. It’s a small act of independence, but it interrupts her marriage and sets into motion an increasingly grotesque chain of events at home.

As her husband, her brother-in-law, and her sister each fight to reassert their control, Yeong-hye obsessively defends the choice that’s become sacred to her. Soon, their attempts turn desperate, subjecting first her mind and then her body to ever more intrusive and perverse violations, sending Yeong-hye spiraling into a dangerous, bizarre estrangement, not only from those closest to her but also from herself.


Han Kang was born in 1970 in South Korea. She is the author of The Vegetarian, which I have read, and winner of the International Booker Prize,  Human ActsThe White BookGreek Lessons, and We Do Not Part. In 2024, she received the Nobel Prize in Literature.



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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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Tell Me Everything: A Novel

Read: January 2025

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Tell Me Everything: A Novel

by Elizabeth Strout

Today, I dived into “Tell Me Everything: A Novel” by Elizabeth Strout, and I’m already captivated. This book made it onto NPR’s best books list for 2024 and caught the eye of Oprah’s Book Club—no small feat! Strout writes with such empathy and emotional depth that it reflects her incredible talent. Lucy beautifully captures this sentiment by stating, “Love comes in many different forms, but it is always love.”

With her profound understanding of the human condition and silences that convey deep emotions, Elizabeth Strout returns to the town of Crosby, Maine, reuniting with her beloved characters—Lucy Barton, Olive Kitteridge, Bob Burgess, and others—as they confront a shocking crime, navigate love while choosing to remain apart, and ponder the question, as Lucy Barton puts it, “What does anyone’s life mean?”

It’s autumn in Maine, and the town lawyer, Bob Burgess, finds himself entangled in a murder investigation, defending a lonely, isolated man accused of killing his mother. He has also developed a deep and abiding friendship with the acclaimed writer Lucy Barton, who lives nearby in a house by the sea with her ex-husband, William.

Lucy and Bob take walks and discuss their lives, fears, regrets, and what could have been. Meanwhile, Lucy is finally introduced to the iconic Olive Kitteridge, who now resides in a retirement community on the outskirts of town. They spend afternoons in Olive’s apartment, sharing stories about people they have known—what Olive calls “unrecorded lives,” which reanimate their experiences and imbue their lives with meaning.



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The Days of Abandonment

Read: July 2024

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The Days of Abandonment

by Elena Ferrante

I’ve just started reading The Days of Abandonment by Elena Ferrante after finishing My Brilliant Friend. This book is among the New York Times’s 100 Best Books of the 21st Century. I chose to read it after watching An Undoing, a documentary about healing from an abusive 20-year marriage using unstitching wedding garments, one stitch at a time.

The film was part of the first night of the International Women’s Film Festival in Cranford. Although, except for one brief moment, I have never been in the same situation as the woman in the short video or Olga, the protagonist in the novel, I choose this as my next book to read. Of course, Ferrante’s writing is known for rich character development and powerful prose.

The Days of Abandonment follows the gripping story of an Italian woman named Olga, whose husband suddenly leaves after fifteen years of marriage. With two young children to care for, Olga finds it increasingly difficult to maintain her previous lifestyle of keeping a spotless house, cooking creative meals, and controlling her temper. After encountering her husband with his much younger lover in public, she even resorts to physically assaulting him.

In a “raging, torrential voice,” according to The New York Times, Olga describes her journey from denial to devastating emptiness. Trapped within the four walls of their high-rise apartment, she confronts her ghosts, the potential loss of her identity, and the possibility that life may never return to normal.

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At the Villa Rose

Read: August 2022

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At the Villa Rose

by Major Alfred Edward Woodley Mason

At the Villa Rose by Major Alfred Edward Woodley Mason, initially published in 1910, is a mystery novel in which Major Mason introduced his French detective, Inspector Hanaud, who was an early template for Agatha Christie’s famous Hercule Poirot. Missing jewels, high adventure some one hundred and fifty kilometers from Geneva, a casino, and blind love are all factors in a complex case for Hanaud, which ultimately involves a gang of frightened murderers. If you enjoy deductive mysteries like me, I highly recommend At the Villa Rose.

The Goodreads summary,

In Aix les Bains during the early 20th century, Celia Harland, a beautiful (of course) young English girl down on her luck, is befriended by a wealthy widow, Madame Dauvray, an addict of “spiritualism,” and stages seances for her benefactrix, while knowing full well that the supposed manifestations from the spirit world are entirely bogus. This set-up supplies the opportunity for a criminal gang master-minded by Madame Dauvray’s maid, with their eyes on the widow’s jewelry collection, to engineer an introduction for one of their numbers, Adele Tacé (“Rossignol”), whose taunts of disbelief goad the old lady into allowing a seance to be held which, unsuspected by either Celia or her patron, will be the cover for murder and robbery.

The crux of the plot is that as a medium, Celia will be made their innocent victim, on whom suspicion is to be planted.


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