Coming home to say goodbye

heading-home

Published
December 2, 2018

Coming home to say goodbye

Maine was in the glorious throes of autumn when the phone call came. I had just pulled in the driveway of my Old Orchard Beach home. It was my sister. “It’s Dad.” She said in an urgent voice. “He’s going quickly. I think you need to come home as soon as you can.” My eyes […]
Published
December 2, 2018

The better angels of my muffler

It was the summer of 1975. I had a summer job in western Maine. With 24 hours off, my destination was Bangor. Homesick, I was hoping my tired Ford Fairlane would get me there. The winter before I had replaced the spark plugs, the alternator, the battery and the brake drums. It was a great […]
Published
December 2, 2018

Walking through the woods of memory

One cold, quiet morning last autumn, I went out to the woods behind my family’s house in rural New Hampshire for solitude and fresh air. It was an intense and emotional week. I’d retuned home to to be with my father and sister to help take care of my mother, who was in hospice and […]
Published
December 2, 2018

Lobsterman’s wife

My husband gets up around 4 a.m. to go lobstering on days that the weather allows. By 5 o’clock, he’s down at the boat and headed out of the cove, well before I’m getting out of bed and getting the kids ready for school. Once the kids are off, I head to work myself. I […]
Published
December 2, 2018

Family finds re-entry rocky

We dashed from our berths in the bowels of the boat to the main deck. My mother held my brother in one arm while I grabbed onto her dress. All dependents were told to get on deck near their assigned life boats. Lots of words were spoken over the PA system. One of those words […]

Published
December 2, 2018

Driving a Dodge and thinking about the draft

It was February 2, 1972 and I was heading home to Las Vegas, driving my Dodge van at night through the dark, winding canyon of the Virgin River Gorge. It was late, almost midnight, and I was coming home from college in Utah. Snow was on the ground, eerily illuminated by a full moon that […]
Published
December 2, 2018

Visiting and revisiting

The trip was to visit family. The ride home from these visits has assumed a form of ritual for me. Easy highway driving allows me time and space to put myself back together. I stop in Portsmouth, a beautiful little city to unwind in. What I do depends on where I find a parking place. […]
Published
December 2, 2018

Fat Albert’s highway wail

I had recently moved back home to Brunswick from Rochester, New York after a recent divorce. My father had kindly volunteered to drive with me back to Rochester to help me gather up the rest of my belongings. My husband and I were quite civil dividing up the last of our things and packing them […]
Published
December 2, 2018

Summer promises kept

“When winter comes, with frosty flowers on the pane, The thought of you will warm our hearts, ‘Til we return here once again.” These are the last lines of our most revered summer camp song, “By a Glistening Lake.” It was sung through sobs on the last night of camp, at what was called the […]
Published
December 2, 2018

One encounter, two experiences

It was two o’clock in the morning and I was tired, lonely. I was supposed to be staying in a Washington D.C. hostel that had bedbugs the size of cats, but in the middle of a humid night, I figured I’d be more comfortable waiting for my 4:30 a.m. train in a cracked, plastic chair […]