Living With Loss, One Day at a Time by Rachel Blythe Kodanaz is the book I would recommend for anyone beginning or in the early stages of grief. The memories you created and your love will live forever. Embrace the love and cherish the memories, as they will always be a part of you remain in your heart.
Stream of Consciousness!
My random thoughts on Jan, love, grief, life, and all things considered.
High Holidays 2021
Rituals are critical to my recovery. For many years, I participated in the High Holidays with minimal engagement. As I had adopted Jan’s religion, I followed her lead, but, in many ways, it was as if I was sleepwalking.
This year, I was fully engaged. This year, for the first time, I understood that it’s the time when my fate stands in the balance as God reviews our past year and decides whether to renew our lease on this planet.
New BooK: The Testaments: The Sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale
The Sequel to The Handmaid's Tale
The Testaments: The Sequel to The Handmaid's Tale
The novel alternates between the perspectives of three women presented as portions of a manuscript written by one (the Ardua Hall Holograph) and testimonies by the other two. Being an amateur historian, I found this a fascinating way for Ms. Atwood to write this book.
Climate Tipping Point?
Robinson Meyer in the Atlantic articulates that we may have reached the tipping point.
Nearly a third of Americans live in an area where a federal disaster occurred this summer, according to a new Washington Post analysis, and at least 64 percent of Americans suffered through a multi-day heat wave this year. Since June, more than 380 Americans have died in extreme weather events.
But we are not doomed.
Because it is Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, I am thinking of the teaching of the first-century rabbi Tarfon: “It is not your duty to finish the work, but neither are you at liberty to neglect it.”
Human Betterment
Jan and I viewed the world as needing repair, and Francis Perkins, FDR’s Labor Secretary, shared our vision. She accepted the position at Labor “on the condition that FDR back her goals: unemployment insurance, health insurance, old-age insurance, a 40-hour workweek, a minimum wage, and the abolition of child labor.”
“There is always a large horizon…. There is much to be done. It is up to you to contribute some small part to a program of human betterment for all time,” Francis Perkins.
Let us remember Francis and Jan and their significant contributions to human betterment.
Am I Still Married or Am I Widowed?
Am I still married, or am I widowed? is a question that I mull over.
Most of my family and friends never think about it as they are sure I am a widow, and they based this on the legal and religious definition of marriage only lasting “till death do us part.”
I always believed Jan and I were married for eternity when we met.
Sharing a portion of the soul of the other is not a relationship that ends at death, and ours was not a marriage legitimized by law but by divine blessing.
If love never dies, how can death end a marriage?
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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Ida’s Wake
Dr. Robert S. Young’s guest essay in The New York Times – The Truth Is That You Can’t Protect Everything From Every Hurricane – reminds us, “No matter what you spend in vulnerable coastal areas, you can’t protect everything from every storm.”
This year should have taught us that the climate emergency is here, and the damage will only worsen.
We can build all the sea walls, dunes, beaches, and marshes we want, but the problem long-term is different from what we put on the ground; it is what we put in the air.