Category: Midlife
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“This Could Be Serious” {Every patient has a story.”}
I don’t have to wait long to be seen—maybe because I’m so sick or maybe because the doctor from the walk-in clinic alerted the ER, as she said she would—but I am in the waiting room long enough to be reminded what a microcosm of the human condition the hospital is: All walks of life…
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Mother Knows Best
Back in January 1922 my parents were born four days apart. My father in Bell, California, and my mother in Tula, Mississippi. They would meet several years later at elementary school when my father’s family returned to its southern roots, and they married in 1948. Although there were balloons and decorations and cake for my…
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Show Me Your Scars and I’ll Show You Mine
I didn’t realize I was sick back then—just miserable. I knew I didn’t belong in law school, though everyone around me said I did. Problem is, you don’t drop out in my family. Wilsons persevere. “I think something’s wrong with your thyroid.” This from my mother at the Thanksgiving table after my dismal semester. Turns…
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On Dreaming {Waking Up Worried}
This morning I woke up wondering how to make amends for having offended someone. We were at a conference and I’d tried to sit next to him during the lunch break. “You can’t sit here,” he said. “I don’t want to be around you because I saw you do something I didn’t like.” It might…
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On Birthdays {My New Normal}
I turned fifty-three two weeks ago today, and for the first time I didn’t hear my mother’s voice on August 5. It’s been almost two years since her dementia diagnosis, so her memory is not what it used to be, not like it was when she would call and sing “happy birthday” to me whether…
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On Monday Morning {Sitting Down to Write }
I’ve promised my friend Sheri that I will write for one hour every day. I think it was my big idea, trying to get us both motivated to do what we say we love to do: write. So now I’m sitting here on a Monday morning, coffee hot, candle lit, jazz on the radio, and…
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Searching, Searching, Searching
I’m like the child who can’t stop asking questions, although I try with all my might not to fidget. “Why is the sky blue?” becomes, for me, “What shall I do with the rest of my life?” “I want to be a fireman when I grow up,” sounds like “Should I have been a social…
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On Being 52: Trust Me, It’s More Than a Number
Please, I beg of you, don’t tell me that my age is “just a number” or “all a matter of attitude.” I get it, really I do, that you mean well, and that you think I’ve got a youthful spirit and that 52 is not 92. But I am here to tell you that being…
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Singing the Blues
Not really, because I can’t sing, at least not in any meaningful or memorable way. Although I’ve been known to belt out a little Van Morrison or John Hiatt when Precious isn’t around, it’s not pretty, or melodic. Just cathartic. These days, though, I’m not much in the mood for singing, or for anything other…
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