black ink butterfly quickly flits across the page its beautiful air When someone we love dies, all we are left with are their ethereal imprints. From deep feelings of connection to them, to memories we shared, to the scent of their clothes, they live on in intangible ways. Both within us and in the world around us. Like the butterfly that flaps its wings and causes a hurricane half way around the world, the unseen world has a powerful effect on us. We become more attuned to i

When I told her about my word project, she thought for a minute and decided it really wasn’t for her. She wasn’t feeling very well. Her liver was getting bigger, and it was pressing on her other organs, making her very uncomfortable. I asked how long she had been sick. She said her breast cancer had first shown up 15 years ago. She was sad to say it had just returned, and it was now in many other parts of her body, as well. She wasn’t afraid to die, and she sort of wished th

The first thing I see when I walk into a room on the hospice floor is not normally a bassinet sitting at the foot of a patient’s bed, but that’s how this story begins. A stuffed animal is perched in the patient’s lap, where she sits up in bed looking like a beautiful 40-something biker chick whose ride has mistakenly landed her here. A tattoo made of words, rendered in simple calligraphy, graces her right foot. Her coal black hair is stylishly short and shiny as patent leathe