Towards the end of April 2001, I emailed mom a link to a fake news story at Über.nu titled Local Man Dies of Everything His Mother Ever Worried About. She replied a few days later with: Verrrrrry Funnnny! Apparently, he didn’t actually listen to his mother. See what you have avoided over the years!!! […]
My mother sent me this email, with the subject line “get those flight arrangements to me”: So, my love, Here goes. Hope this works. Sorry it’s not a literary gem, but I’m beat. Long, hard day. Speaking of Easter, I’m not sure where we’ll be having Easter dinner – which does not mean to make […]
As soon as I moved to Los Angeles, Mom started to send me articles about the Gators which she clipped from The Gainesville Sun. Sometimes she’d toss in a few Peanuts comics or a sticker, little things like that. And always a note. Here is the note she included after we beat Tennessee 27-23 in […]
6/3/97 Tuesday Today I’m starting my Daffy Duck Diary. I’m going to write every day, just a few lines maybe, longhand, no less. I’m going to write about weight and food and feelings and actions. And in a while I may understand why I am the way I am, why I feel the way […]
In 1994 mom returned to school to finish her degree. She went to UCF and got her BA in 1998 at the age of 50. She was incredibly proud of this accomplishment, and we were all very proud of her, too. She submitted a paper for ANT 3422 on December 3, 1996 titled Gagne, A […]
A photo from a party
In which mom writes me a letter shortly after I left for college
In the middle of March, in 2013, among thousands of mom’s scraps of paper and notebooks and letters, I found a handwritten will. It is dated 6-3-88 and is in mom’s indescribably perfect Palmer script: 6-3-88 To Whom It May Concern: In the event of my death, this is my last will and testament. […]
Here is an anecdote mom submitted to the Life in These United States department of Reader’s Digest. It’s typed and she wrote “9/16/85” in the upper margin, so that’s how I’m dating it. It’s funny to see our old address and phone number. I can’t say for certain if it was ever published in the […]