It is with heavy hearts that we share with you that Suzanne passed away Thursday, May 30, 2024 near her home in Marin County, California. Suzanne died peacefully, with grace, and on her terms. She requested a posthumous post, for which we selected some of her poetry, written over the last couple decades, to share with you. Her voice shines through, strong as ever, and may it stay with you even as her presence is gone.
Just as nobody warned me how my easy life would turn upside down with the birth of a child, I apparently didn’t get the memo that it could be almost unbearable to grow old. The big difference is that with a child things got better, much better—lovely really...
It’s a whole new life, I have not yet embraced it, and I am scared. So it must be time for me to write about it, my best way to find out what’s true…
Bizarre—and humdrum—as it may sound, I am here to tell you about the myriad drugs I now take on a daily basis. Why? Because I woke up this morning and, to my surprise…
The first week of Trond’s plan to starve himself to death went pretty well, as he continued to remember what he wanted to do. When I was about to eat, I would ask whether he was okay with not eating. I had to be very sure that was what he still wanted. He assured me again and again that it was.…
“Do you still want to die?” the kind hospice nurse asked Trond gently as she, he and I sat together in the den during one of her short, infrequent Covid-era visits toward the end. “I don’t want to live.” Trond answered…
Almost two years and 10 doctors later, “we”— and that’s the “royal we” — finally have an actual diagnosis for my sudden, mystifying physical decline. And guess who came up with it?… It’s a crazy story involving some significant serendipity. Here it is if you’re up for it…
It’s an early spring Sunday. I sit alone in my beautiful living room with nothing to do but this. And, okay, to look up occasionally and, through the many panoramic windows, watch the morning sun splash white light on gently trembling tree leaves. Lovely…
A few posts ago, I reported that, when asked by my helpful coach Amanda about a future worth getting well for, I couldn’t picture a life without my beloved Trond. That realization shocked us both, but it didn’t mean I wanted to die; it meant I wasn’t yet ready to live again. Why get well when I couldn’t imagine what a meaningful life would look like?…
Who knew it would ever be a struggle to get two arms into a simple fleece? Or get up from a chair or pull up my pants? Hard to cut a piece of chicken or hold a cup of coffee? Or safely take a walk? And what about reading the tiny words in the many magazines I’ve had to cancel? Who knew? The Suzanne of even two years ago didn’t know. She hadn’t a clue. She can hardly believe it now. The good news is some of my problems might be correctable, if you don’t mind a little uncertain surgery.…
“Sticks and stones can break my bones, but words can never hurt me.” Whoever says that and means it is either stone-cold oblivious or fully enlightened. I seem to be somewhere in between. The day before yesterday I was hit with a barrage of verbal abuse the likes of which I’ve never before experienced, thank God. Although I think I’m handling it pretty darned well…
The other day, as I lay resting, which is pretty much all I am able to do other than eat and sleep, up from the bowels of my being came a powerful question. It’s such a big question, so critical to my future, that I am not quite sure if I dare to ask it…here, out loud. What, dear God, if the answer is no? But here we go…
Yes, there is an elephant in my room. For lack of a better idea, we call her Adrenal Fatigue. And this big girl has almost sapped the life out of me…
I sit this fall morning in deep silence in a beautiful little house in the California redwoods. I’m so very alone but not, I’d say, lonely. Instead of putting me off, the total stillness draws me in, forcing an unexpected focus on the aliveness in my old body and, suddenly, a desire to write.…
I sit alone in an almost eerie silence nine months to the day since my beloved Trond drew his last, labored breath. All that time, and for so much more before, I myself was silent, lacking will and way to express the waking nightmare of our life.…
As I lay safely in bed Easter morning, this is the short Covid prayer/lament that came to me: As I look forward (so to speak) to the long gray hair that will add 10 years to my appearance, I work to feel as blessed as I absolutely am by my white, upper middle class privilege, in the midst of what for many is the nightmare of ten lifetimes.…
Eleven years ago the life coach I then was offered these words of would-be wisdom for dealing with the mother of all holidays. Have at my words and please share yours via comments.
I woke up the other 2008 late fall morning with that odd mix of anxiety and anticipation I’ve come to expect at this time of year. How can I do it all? Do I even want to? Why can’t it just be over? But strangely, those pesky questions arise alongside a mysterious, barely-contained joy…
“Stop swimming, stop fighting.” These words rang loud and clear in the ears of my beloved teacher, Swami Kripalvanand, as he was swept away by the monsoon-swollen river Yamuna in India more than a half century ago. These same words, which came to him in the voice of his beloved teacher Dadaji, have lately come to me, if only from the old, familiar voice in my head.
“Stop swimming, stop fighting.” This simple admonition, which may have saved Bapuji’s life because he listened and let the water carry him safely to shore, might also save mine.…
If you lose your partner, the common wisdom is you don’t make any other major changes for three years. Not unless you want to go way off the stress test charts, and maybe expire yourself. No, don’t worry, I have not lost my beloved husband Trond, who is alive and well and splitting firewood or something of the sort outdoors even on this winter day. And thank God for him!
Trond and I are alive all right, but there is a pall hanging over us, which you too must be feeling.…
Words crowd my head like gulls to bread on the beach. But having been silent for so long, I wonder if I can speak again. And after all that has happened—to me and to the world as we knew it (or thought we did)—I wonder if I can say anything to add value to the great wave of voices already being unleashed by the divisive election of one Donald J. Trump as President of our United States. Only time and the courage to sit here and write will tell. Here we go!…
