“Good things happen slowly,” said a doctor in the ICU months ago, “and bad things happen fast.” Those were comforting words, and they comfort me today. Recovery is a long, slow process. There are good days and bad days for both of us. I try to find an even keel but still I am upset on the bad days and hopeful on the good. Uncertainty is the hardest part. There is no prognosis, no one can tell me how much better Rich will get and how long it might take. The day before my birthday Rich imagines that we’ve gone to Coney Island and he bought me a shell necklace. This is my present, as real for me as it was for him. He held my hand. That was yesterday, a good day, but filled with sadness. The season is changing, I take Harry to the park and watch the leaves turning and falling, there is beauty overhead and underfoot. There is something else I don’t know yet, something I’m straining to feel, as subtle as the change in humidity or temperature, or the shift in light as summer becomes fall, the most beautiful season, with its gift of beauty in loss, and the promise of something more to come.
About the Author
© Jennifer Waddell
ABIGAIL THOMAS is the mother of four children and the grandmother of twelve. She is the author of six previous books, including the memoir A Three Dog Life, which was named one of the best books of 2006 by the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post. She teaches writing and lives in Woodstock, New York.
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ALSO BY ABIGAIL THOMAS
Getting Over Tom
An Actual Life
Herb’s Pajamas
Safekeeping
A Three Dog Life
Thinking About Memoir
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First Scribner hardcover edition March 2015
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.
ISBN 978-1-4767-8505-9
ISBN 978-1-4767-8507-3 (ebook)
The author is grateful to the editors of the following magazines for publishing, usually in different form, pieces of this book: O, The Oprah Magazine; Tin House; Sonora Review; Open City; Drunken Boat; and The Ocean State Review.
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