Family

Suzette and her three husbands by Suzette Standring

Let’s get something out of the way.  I’m 68 and I have been married three times.  As they say, the third’s a charm. I am not embarrassed, although the wife of my first ex-husband did try.  At my daughter’s wedding, she loudly said, “I want a picture of Suzette and her three husbands!”   Since […]

My mother’s unloved diamond ring

We treasure what loved ones left behind, like a favorite piece of jewelry. Or was it? My mother’s engagement ring has quite a story, and now at age 67, I understand why she never wore it. She married my dad in 1950, and later in the 1980’s, after my mother’s death, the sparkly European-cut diamond […]

Father’s Day: I see you differently now

I needed a poke in the back.  I always thought my father’s lack of attention was benign. However, my dad never said, “I love you,” and rarely interacted with us. After work he’d head to his bedroom to eat and watch the Mike Douglas Show alone. But really, compared to addiction, womanizing or cruelty, my […]

International Family Day: Get Vaccinated, It’s What Family Does

May 15 is International Family Day, and a once-a-century pandemic heightens love and gratitude, and now the separation is lifting. Recently, I asked a friend where his wife was, and he said, “She did her two week waiting period after her second vax, and she was out like a shot to see the grandkids in […]

Spring Flowers: A Profoundly Short But Healing Life

Spring flowers are fleeting and fragile beauties. The metaphor for “living in the now,” is a crocus bloom. My dining room is alight in yellow forsythia and daffodils, budding azaleas, and shrub branches full of “pink, pearly thingies.” After 20 years I have a first-ever flower bower for my meal times. Pandemic isolation highlights home […]