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I hate the summer. Too many people have died then. My father, June 8th; my mother, June 10th. Max, my mother’s late-in-life love, who made her feel she was his queen -- he died early June too. I can’t remember if it was the last day of July or the day before, that my husband John spiraled out of the sky. It’s true it was a long time ago, but still, you’d think I’d never forget the date of something like that.

It never dawned on me that, by planning to marry on a holiday devoted to memorializing the dead, I might be tempting fate.

But tempt fate I did, and fourteen months to the day I became a bride, I went from newlywed to widow.

I was lucky enough to audit Professor Reg McKnight’s creative writing class at UGA, and his mention of a former student whose story consisted entirely of questions has stuck with me for years.
I’d like to think I’m paying homage, but I’m just stealing the idea.
Will I be punished for my thievery? I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

Sleep that knits up the ravell'd sleave of care, the death of each day's life, sore labour's bath, balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course, chief nourisher in life's feast.

William Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act II, sc. 2

I’ve flown to distant continents, traversed the Andes and the Amazon; mostly, I’ve trudged upstairs and hauled my weary butt to bed. I’ve sought comfort under comforters and in the furry purr of cats.

“The most regretful people… are those… who felt their own creative power restive and uprising, and gave to it neither power nor time.”
Mary Oliver

Geez. Five years.

You could say, “Yes, I regret.” You could say, “I should have been.” Or you could ask yourself, like David Byrne, “My God! What have I done?”