Dreaming up Delights, Part Three

Wedding People.  [The last in a series of three posts celebrating the July 15 wedding of my dad, Rod Seiler, and Mercedes Garcia. You’ll find Part One here and Part Two here.] The Fury All morning I’d felt the brink, known I was tottering right to it. I didn’t want to be upset on my […]


Dreaming up Delights

Me, Dad, Mercedes.  July 15, 2012. Roll the ReelsSaturday night I dreamed up one long sequence of lovely things. Rich and I traveled to some new exotic tropical place, wriggling toes into warm peach sand and sighing together with the sun as the horizon swallowed it. I sat in an auditorium filled with hundreds and […]


Mom’s Box of Me

Souvenir. The Stuff of Ghosts “What’s in the box, Dad?” I asked, as my father arrived to share a birthday meal with my husband and me.“It’s a bunch of stuff your mom saved when you were a kid. I found it in the garage.”“Oh …” I trailed off. I didn’t want to spend my birthday […]


The Day I Forgot the Cheez-its

Cheez-Its. Mom Loved Them. Moving On. I knew the day would come when I’d forget the Cheez-Its. It didn’t come on Easter, when I contributed snacks to a Lagrand family gathering. Nope. On that day I prepared a platter of grapes, dried apricots, a carefully-curated collection of cheeses, various crackers–and a box of Cheez-Its. The […]


The Day I Met my Dad

Dad and I Practice an Important Walk. Mom Supervises. September, 2007. Getting to Know Him“Dad, I have a question for you,” It was the second anniversary of my mother’s death, and he and I had met at the cemetery. As we stood among the urns and crypts, the silence of the place pressed in on […]