People who have lived with a personality-disordered individual can recognize one a mile away. We are held hostage to the whims, moods, and tantrums of someone who brings chaos and alarm wherever she goes. She will forget (or deny) anything she says when it’s convenient to. The rest of us will still be reeling days  Read the Rest…

(This is the second in a series about a 40th college reunion.  The first is Walla Walla Begin Again) On Friday morning, I sat with Debi over coffee for a long time before walking the few miles to campus.  Mary Ellis pulled up alongside as I walked along Birch, headed for the Marcus Street foot  Read the Rest…

Last May when I was two weeks away from my trip to England, I started a folder called “Stuff to Do When I Get Back” and began tossing notes quite liberally into it.  After spending an idyllic June in England, I came home to my life, which includes wonderful friends and neighbors, my two cats  Read the Rest…

The day after my mother’s burial, I moved the junk sitting on one half of the dining room table so that it sat precariously on the junk sitting on the other half of the dining room table,  the big table had held so many dinners that so many people remembered more fondly than I did.  Alex and  Read the Rest…

My mother died the day before Thanksgiving in 2007 and was buried a week later. My brother came for the burial. I wanted to do the service myself and I didn’t want anyone there who hadn’t been supportive of him and me.  Four people made the cut: Lisa, my mother’s next door neighbor, Kathie, my  Read the Rest…

Mid November my mother was moved into a private room, which to me heralded the immediacy of her death. One morning I found her dozing in a patch of sunshine.  I put my face close to hers.  When she opened her eyes, her face lit up with a beautiful smile.  She said my name and  Read the Rest…

In the last few episodes you met my mother’s new priest who had decided I was the spawn of Satan.  He (the priest, not Satan or the spawn) was determined to protect my mother from me.  I was just as determined to limit his influence. Read on: The day after my mother and I received the news  Read the Rest…

The last time I saw my mother in my childhood home, she looked pale and shriveled. When she leaned back and closed her eyes, she looked dead.  She had lost a lot of weight.  Far from being problematic to her, she thought it made her look young and sexy.  She kept saying she felt better  Read the Rest…

If you’ve been reading these pieces–cut from my memoir 99 Girdles on the Wall— in order, you’ll recall the 450 organizations my mother was leaking her pension to (The Mail) and the two attorneys my brother and I went through (The Attorney). Never a dull moment: On another front, my mother’s church was getting involved in her affairs. She  Read the Rest…

This is the second in a series of stories that were edited out of my memoir 99 Girdles on the Wall.  It’s still good stuff!  If you are dealing with aging parents, may you feel less alone as you read it. After my father’s death, my brother Alex and I hired an attorney to help us  Read the Rest…