I sat on the scrumptious white twill slipcovered sofa and my boyfriend, Chris, sat next to me, holding my hand. Bob sat across from us, holding a notepad and a pen. He didn't say anything, just kind of looked at me like, It's OK, take your time. I'll wait. I...

My face is falling. If I said this to you, in person, you'd probably laugh, like my best friend did, and tell me not to be ridiculous. Or maybe you'd say, "Oh Aunt Susan, you're so silly," like my 8-year-old niece did when she caught me Christmas Eve, trying to...

Did you make New Year's resolutions? I didn't. Not new ones, anyway. Instead, I simply reminded myself of the decisions I made just about two years ago, after my husband's death from pancreatic cancer.

At the time, I was asked what advice I might have for someone...

Oh my God, there's a bee in my hair.

No wait, let me correct that. Oh my God, there are two bees in my hair. I'm out on my front lawn finally dealing with my late husband's almost equally late pear tree, and the bees are none too happy...

"Do you want to talk about Dad?"

My 20-year-old shakes his head no, grabs a package of Chips Ahoy! from the pantry and heads back to the very loud Madden game he's engrossed in against his younger brother. I hear something like, "Give me one of those," followed by...

"I say we kill Julie."

I snap my cell phone shut and turn to my 13-year-old, who's busy nudging the radio dial around with his nose. We're sitting in the car, waiting for his train to New Jersey that's almost three hours late, and "Julie," Amtrak's automated customer service "person,"...

It was Wednesday of Holy Week at about four-thirty in the morning, and I was where I always am at four-thirty in the morning: at my desk trying to crack myself up. I subscribe to the Mel Brooks school of humor which says, "If you laugh, they're going to laugh"...

Rumor has it that other people talk about the actual deaths of their spouses. And I mean specifics about the day, the night, the morning the person died. The sticky, sweet smell in the room, the way the light from the baby monitor glowed red and relentless on a table...

Every morning I wake up around four or five, haul my butt out of bed and make coffee. Then I pop this little, "All Natural!" purple pill that makes my brain buzz and my stomach forget the house has a kitchen (not to mention a pantry stocked with enough junk...

I can't remember the exact date I took my wedding rings off, which bothers me because I remember in minute detail the exact date (time, place, what I was wearing -- white comes to mind) when I put them on, but I know it was sometime late last summer when...

My younger son, Cuyler, is leaning in the doorway watching me make my bed. For a second I consider turning on the mom charm and saying, "Don't just stand there young man. Get in here and help me!" but the fact is, I don't need help making half a bed....

"They look awesome, Sue," said my friend Marc when I stepped out of the dressing room of the Levis store in Soho in a pair of Demi Curve, dark rinse, straight leg jeans. I glanced in the mirror. They looked ok. I squatted down. No plumber's crack, and they didn't...

My son was away at school four days when the phone call came. It was his counselor, and she wanted me to know that he wanted to go home. Me too, I thought, flashing on my mom's house and her full fridge and how I can put on ten pounds...

A few weeks ago, I woke up at three in the morning and scared myself silly. Not because of the time; I have the internal clock of a rooster, so I'm used to getting up in the wee dark hours. What I'm unused to is turning on a light. Don't...

We had a couple of hours to kill before the Giants game one Sunday, so I took the boys to look at houses. Not because we have to move, we don't. Our five hundred acre farm is owned by family, so we can stay as long as we like or...

It rained buckets the day of my husband's memorial service. I'm talking the kind of teeming, driving rain that whisks animals, neglected toys, and lawn furniture away, the kind of rain that soaks you to the skin, corkscrews a pin straight, pricey blow-dry, and sucks your Michael Kors pumps straight...

According to the experts, and by that I mean the expert, renowned psychiatrist and author Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, there are five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.

Five months into the grieving process myself, and five months into helping my two sons get through it too, I...

My twelve year-old son, Cuyler, and I are standing in the wine aisle in the Food Lion in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. It's eight o'clock Sunday morning, and he's in a bathing suit, flip flops, a tee shirt that reads: "New Jersey. Only the Strong Survive," and a New York...