I left my husband today on a hillside overlooking the lake. He was sleeping peacefully in a plain pine box. He was dressed in a saffron colored robe and had his favorite fedora on his head. I told him I loved him as I shoveled dirt on the box. I went back to the house without him. He was looking at the lake and didn’t want to be disturbed.
There was a beautiful sunset tonight. I sat on the dock and watched the sun disappear into the lake. The sky turned red and purple and gold. The lake was quiet and the mosquitoes hummed. I looked in the water but I couldn’t see Steve. I guess he’s still on the hill sleeping peacefully. I hope he wakes up soon.
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This is my life. You may be interested.
About Me
- Ellen home and away
- This is what my mother taught me: Be a passionate advocate for your family. Have strong opinions and don't be afraid to express them. Always be open to learning new things.
My Reading List
- The Plague by Albert Camus
- The Quality of Mercy by Barry Unsworth
- Play It As It Lays by Joan Didion
- The One: The Life and Music of James Brown by R.J. Smith
- The Long Road Home: The Aftermath of the Second World War by Ben Shephard
- When We Were Kennedys by Monica Wood
- The Last Worthless Evening by Andre Dubus
- Miss Fuller by April Bernard
- Smut by Allan Bennett
- Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradley
- The Gift: Creativity and the Artist in the Modern World by Lewis Hyde
- At Last by Edward St. Aubyn
- Under the Banner of Heaven by Jon Krakauer
- The Ambassadors by Henry James
- Never Mind, Bad News, Some Hope and Mother's Milk by Edward St. Aubyn
- Pulphead by John Jeremiah Sullivan
- Light Years by James Salter
- The Hare with the Amber Eyes by Edmund de Waal
- Rome: a Cutlural, Visual and Personal History by Robert Hughes
- What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank by Nathan Englander
- The Barbarian Nurseries by Hector Tobar
- Catherine the Great by Robert Massie
- Swamplandia! by Kerry Russel
- Burning the Days by James Salter
- The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton
- Yoga for People Who Can't Be Bothered to Do It by Geoff Dyer
- An Anatomy of Addiction, Sigmund Freud, William Halstead and the Miracle Drug Cocaine by Howard Markel
- A Book of Secrets: Illegitimate Daughters, Absent Fathers by Michael Holroyd
- For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway
- The Ordeal of Elizabeth Marsh: A Woman in World History by Linda Colley
- How to LIve or A Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer by Sarah Bakewell
- Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness by Alexandra Fuller
- Bullett Park by John Cheever
- To End All Wars: A Story of Loyalty and Rebellion 1914-1918 by Adam Hochschild
- The Wapshot Chronicle by John Cheever
- Falconer by John Cheever
- Examined Lives by James Miller
- We Were the Mulvaneys by Joyce Carol Oates
- Room by Emma Donoghue
- The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery by Eric Foner
- Collected Stories by Saul Bellow
- A Widow's Story by Joyce Carol Oates
- Humboldt's Gift by Saul Bellow
- The Finkler Question by Howard Jacobsen
- Freedom by Jonathan Franzen
- Seize the Day by Saul Bellow
- Letters of Saul Bellow
- To the End of the Land by David Grossman
- The Passion by Jeanette Winterson
- Foreign Bodies by Cynthia Ozick
- The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion
- Apollo's Angels: A History of Ballet by Jennifer Homans
- The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson
- Our Kind of Traitor by John Le Carre
- The Death of an Adversary by Hans Keilson
- The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet by David Mitchell
- Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Shteyngart
- Parrot and Olivier in America by Peter Carey
- A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan
- My Father's Tears by John Updike
- Beware of PIty by Stefan Zweig
- Empire of LIberty: A history of the Early Republic, 1789-1815 by Gordon S. Wood
- Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi by Geoff Dyer
- My LIttle Bird of Heaven by Joyce Carol Oates
- Sag Harbor by Colson Whitehead
- Continental Drift by Russell Banks
- Nostromo by Joseph Conrad
- The Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan
- The Amulet by Roberto Bolano
- Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned by Wells Tower
- The Radicalism of the American Revolution by Gordon S. Wood
- The Museum of Innocence by Orhan Pamuk
- In Other Rooms, Other Wonders by Daniyal Mueenuddin
- A Sentimental Education by Gustave Flaubert
- Scribbling the Cat by Alexandra Fullerton
- Where the God of Love Hangs Out by Amy Blooom
- The Vertigo Years:Europe 1900-1914
- Too Much Happiness by Alice Munro
- A Paradise Built in Hell by Rebecca Solnit
- Half the Sky:Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl DuWunn
- The Women by T.C.Boyle
- The Decline and Fall of the British Empire, 1781-1997, by Piers Brendon
- Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
- 2666 by Roberto Bolano
- Strength in What Remains by Tracy Kidder
- A Happy Marriage by Rafael Yglesias
- The Dark Side by Jane Mayer
- The Winter Vault by Anne Michaels
- How Fiction Works by James Wood
- The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science by Richard Holmes
- Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
- The Widows of Eastwick by John Updike
- Middlemarch by George Eliot
- Man Gone Down by Michael Thomas
- A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
- The White War: Life and Death on the Italian Front 1915-1919 by Mark Thompson
- A Strange Eventful History: The Dramatic LIves of Ellen Terrym Henry Irving and Their Remarkable Families by Michael Holroyd
- Midnight in Sicily by Peter Robb
- Things I've Been Silent About by Azar Nafisi
- The White Rock:An Exploration of the Inca Heartland by Hugh Thomson
- The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolano
- War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
- Radical Visions and American Dreams by Richard Pells
- The Day of the Owl, The Wine Dark Sea, To Each His Own, all by Leonardo Sciascia
- Gomorrah by Roberto Saviano
- Portrait of a Lady by Henry James
- Dreams of My Father by PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA!!!
- The Forever War by Dexter Filkins
- Stanley, The Impossible Life of Africa's Greatest Explorer by Tim Jeal
- Excellent Cadavers by Alexander Stille
- The House on Sugar Beach by Helene Cooper
- The Snow Leopard by Peter Matthiessen
- Christ Stopped at Eboli by Carlo Levi
- Garibaldi by Christopher Hibberd
- The Bin Ladens by Steve Coll
- Sleepless Nights by Elizabeth Hardwicke
- Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri
- Netherland by Joseph O'Neill
- The Day of Battle: The War in Sicily and Italy, 1943-1944 by Rick Atkinson
- An Army at Dawn by Rick Atkinson
- Deep Economy by Bill McKibben
- Lush Life by Richard Price
- The Whisperers by Orlando Figes
- All Aunt Hagar's Children by Edward P. Jones
4 comments:
Dare I comment? Ellen, I hope not to intrude in your sacred space, but I feel compelled to respond. Your bravery to share your inner life is unequaled and I am in awe. You are a goddess of strength, courage, and wisdom! Your radiance is the perfect counterpart for Steve who was already a god among men while he was here...I can't imagine his brilliance now. Steve so deserves the beautiful love you, and his family, and his friends have for him. I am sure he feels it.
I believe that when you dream of Steve, it is truly him in spirit, he will surely comfort you.
Beverly Chapman DeCer
as Beverly wrote """Dare I comment? Ellen, I hope not to intrude in your sacred space, but I feel compelled to respond."""
EXACTLY HOW I FELT WHEN READING "TODAY" I NORMALLY DO NOT HESITATE TO RESPOND BUT DID NOT WANT TO INTRUDE ON HER SACRED THOUGHTS AT THAT MOMENT OF FAREWELL. THE EARTH HAS BEEN STILLED, THE HEAVENS ARE AFLAME AND TREMBLING AND ABUZZ.......
HE'S HERE. HE'S HERE
AND HE'S GOT SOME MIGHTY GOOD FRIENDS UP THERE.......YOUR LIFE WILL NEVER BE THE SAME, YOU BEINGS OF ABOVE. HE MAY BE YOURS NOW BUT HIS FOOTPRINT ON THIS EARTH SHALL LAST FOREVER IN SO MANY HEARTS.
I searched for words. There are none. Your life partner was a beautiful human being. You are on my heart. Love you,
Wil
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