This is a little bit of a tough time for me. It is just past the Jewish High Holidays and, on September 23 it will be twenty-two years since my son Paul took his life. And that my husband Bob died in this past year doesn't help. There was not a lot of praying I could do to help make things better. I'll just have to go on living my life as it is. I recently finished the book, The Midnight Library by Matt Haig, which brought to mind a lot memories about how I've lived my life and the choices I made along the way. In the book, the main character, Nora Seed, decides to end her young life, but she ends up at a half-way point - the midnight library - where she gets a chance to experience other lives she could have lived instead. The goal was for her to pick one and therefore choose to keep living. It turns out she wakes up in a hospital and goes on living the life she had before her suicide attempt, but with a more positive outlook about what she can do personally and for work. … [Read more...]
Remembering Paul on Rosh Hashanah
Poster courtesy of Mike Purcell, founder of the Facebook page, Putting a Face on Suicide So the Jewish High Holiday, Rosh Hashanah, is over. It begins a ten-day period of reflection ending with our Day of Atonement (a fast day) when we go to synagogue to pray to be sealed in the book of life for another year. Even though I'm not religious and I question the existence of God, and it is hard for me to pray or even say the pray word, going to high holiday services always makes me cry. Especially the reading on Rosh Hashanah that spells out who shall live and who shall die. (listen to Leonard Cohen's rendition.) On Rosh Hashanah will be inscribed and on Yom Kippur will be sealed how many will pass from the earth and how many will be created; who will live and who will die; who will die at his predestined time and who before his time; who by water and who by fire, who by sword, who by beast, who by famine, who by thirst, who by storm, who by plague, who by strangulation, and who by … [Read more...]
It’s not always about me
It's time to get out of the funk. It's time to concentrate on my writing work the thing I always turn to get me out of the deep mud. Last week I began working on my novel again and I'm fulfilling my goal of writing about 300 words a day. That's just about enough since I still am writing my own blog plus pieces for other sites. I just love having so much writing work to do. I can't think of a better way for me to spend my time. But my life isn't all about work. Last weekend we saw Mozart's Cos Fan Tutte (Women Are All Alike). It is categorized as opera buppa comical opera. And it fits that definition perfectly. The most comical parts for me were the five characters singing all at once but singing different words with Mozart's brilliant score keeping up with them. The plot is hysterical though at times uncomfortable. The two main male characters are convinced that they must test their lover's fidelity, but in finding out that the women, who are all alike, can be enticed to be … [Read more...]
