Randomness. That word sticks in my mind in the aftermath of the bombings near the Boston Marathon finish line. The randomness of it all when it came to who was injured and who was not, who died and who survived. The randomness of who decided to watch the marathon that day and who chose instead to spend a day at a beach, a zoo, or Revolutionary War reenactments. Continue reading
People often struggle about what to do when a friend’s relative dies. Sometimes, the smallest things can make a difference. Today, I stumbled upon a book a photo store gave in memory of my brother — 27 years ago. It meant more than I ever could have imagined. Continue reading
Maybe it’s weird to keep my brother’s Levi’s jacket. But it’s a piece of him that I’m not ready to give up. By keeping the jacket, I preserve a precious moment in time, a day when I could grant my brother exactly what he wanted. It was a moment I would never again get to repeat with my brother. Continue reading
No one can fathom the kind of grief the parents of those 20 children – or the six adults killed in the same school shooting – will experience in the weeks, months, and years to come. No one, too, should try to second-guess how the tragedy will affect the victims’ siblings. Continue reading
Summary: Choosing a name for our unborn son stirred up the past for my husband and me. I wrote an essay about that struggle for The New York Times Motherlode blog. The piece was published on July 29, 2012, and stems partly from a chapter in the memoir I’m writing about journeying through grief and finding faith after the loss of my brother. Click on link below to read the piece.
Reaction: The story drew more than … Continue reading
August 7, 2012
Today my brother Kevin would have turned 50. Killed in a car accident at age 23, Kevin has been dead longer than he lived.
In 23 years, he did a lot of living. Since he would have been 50, here are 50 things I remember about my brother. They are a random set of remembrances, most from me, some passed along over the years from relatives and friends. Together, they may give others a sense of the young man, teenager, and boy he was.
The voices of our loved ones hold incredible power of us. I realized just how much when a friend of late brother said he had found a tape with my brother’s voice. Then the friend couldn’t find the tape. I wrote an essay about this for a magazine, and readers wrote back their own stories. Everyone, I suspect, has a story to tell about voice and its hold on them. Continue reading
Religion is a touchy subject in America. It’s a touchy topic within families. It’s just plain touchy to talk about religion whether you’re a Jew, Muslim, Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, or atheist. I look back at 2011 and realize that it was the year when I found the courage to write more deeply and publicly than ever before about my own Jewish faith. Continue reading
His auburn hair turned reddish-blond. His teeth gleamed white in a face that tanned to bronze. My late brother Kevin was the eternal boy of summer.
He was born in early August. Maybe his love for everything summer was a birthright.
To my brother, a slalom skier and ski jumper, every lake was a body of water to master.
Is there a statute of limitations on mourning? I wavered as I sat in my car in the temple parking lot. It was 8:45 a.m., and for the first time, I planned to attend a Yizkor service on Shavuot, a Jewish holiday I usually ignored. There was one other car in the temple lot. Perhaps I should just drive away, run errands, and get my daily overpriced cup of iced chai at Starbucks. My brother died nearly 25 years ago. Did I belong among the mourners that would gather in … Continue reading
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