Violets are blue and roses are red

So sorry to hear your father is dead

The fact he’s underneath the moss

Must add greatly to your loss

(continue reading…)

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In the back of my closet, I still have a box full of pictures of my wedding, all black and white, all in color. That is to say, it was a black and white wedding shot on color film stock. White dress. Black tuxedos. White shirts. Black dresses with white polka-dots. Arrangements of black roses and baby’s breath on white tablecloths. A dark chocolate cake with white frosting. Black balloons and white balloons.

Darkness and light in an eternal struggle, with light prevailing over here and darkness winning over there and neither side fully gaining the upper hand. All tinted with the warm glow of candles, the murky red of Pinot Noir, the twinkle of blue and green eyes, the amber of beer, the blush of flushed cheeks.

Kari planned the details off the wedding, and her aunt helped her get everything at a discount. Someone’s cousin took all the photos of the wedding, some posed and some candid, for a very reasonable fee. There are more than 150 photos, all numbered and waiting to be placed in proper order in a wedding album, which never happened and never will.

Photo #11: Me in my black tux. My friend Rick had helped me buy it in the garment district. He knew clothes. He had taken great delight in showing me which tuxes were generic rip-offs with designer labels sewn in. He steered me toward a simple, elegant, and inexpensive classic. In the picture, I am smiling but scared to death. (continue reading…)

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On the way to Detroit, I had this dream that Mom told me that President Obama had called her to tell her I was coming to see her.

When the connecting flight pulled into Indianapolis (or as many of us called it, “India-No-Place”), I turned on my cell phone. There was a voicemail from my sister Mara telling me to call. I was pretty sure what it was. I dialed it. She said it was “The Call.” Our mother had passed on. (continue reading…)

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It’s a recession, I needed a job

I decided to walk my good friend’s dog

He’s a beautiful dog, Gov

And his name’s Buddy Love

(continue reading…)

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Don’t freak out when traffic is slow

Don’t be upset if you’re late for the show

Gotta rise with the tide and go with the flow

Sometimes you shrink and sometimes you grow

Sometimes you fade and sometimes you glow

Gotta rise with the tide and go with the flow

(continue reading…)

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Dad was lying on what I was pretty much sure would be his death bed. His chest was heaving up and down from the oxygen being pumped into it through a tube inserted into his windpipe. He had been in a coma for days, and he didn’t look like dad anymore. For days, my head had been replaying scenes from a very disturbing movie I’d seen about a guy who can’t seem to wake up from his dreams—as it turns out, because he’s in a coma. I was only now starting to comfortably resign myself to the idea that dad might not be waking up again. (continue reading…)

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One snowy evening I got into my brand-new GEO Prizm that Kari and I had bought the previous year, right before she moved out on me, and decided to drive by some friends’ house to see what they were up to. I loved the way that sleek black car responded to the subtlest movement of the steering wheel and seemed to float on a cushion of air. As I drove by the house, their lights were off, so I continued onto Miles River Road. As I was coming over a hill and taking a curve at 35 m.p.h., it suddenly occurred to me that this was much too fast to be taking this turn on a snowy night. The road agreed. (continue reading…)

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