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Love Everlasting!

Estimated reading time: 3 minutes, 1 second
Jan Lilien

Jan Chooses Life Over Death

“We have a diagnosis,” said Dr. Saksena. “You have non-Hodgkin’s Large B Cell Lymphoma, and it is very aggressive but also very treatable.” My heart skipped a beat when I heard the message.

My arm was around Jan’s shoulder. I pulled her toward me and held her hands. I did not cry, but my voice was almost overwhelmed with tears as I told her I loved her and we would be OK. 

Dr. Saksena wanted to start chemotherapy on Thursday. Jan said she could not as she had to speak at a YWCA event. We agreed on the following Tuesday. Dr. Saksena gave her a prescription for steroids starting now instead of a few days before treatment. 

On the trip home, Jan wept.

“Why is God punishing me? Haven’t we had enough burdens placed upon us? How much can we take?”

I focused my thoughts on the treatable message. 

“I don’t want to die!” she said. 

I stressed that we had good doctors, and they were working with us to find a cure. 

“You can’t promise me everything will be OK!” 

Yom Kippur in 2019

We got thru evening and morning services as best we could. In the afternoon, we went to afternoon services. This time the sanctuary was less crowded. We found seats on the right side near the bema. 

Rabbi Renee Edelman read “Therefore Choose Life” based on Deuteronomy 30:19.

“Today, I have given you a choice between life and death, between blessings and curses. Now I call on heaven and earth to witness the choice you make. Oh, that you would choose life so that you and your descendants might live!”

Deuteronomy 30:19

Jan squeezed my hand and turned to me and whispered, “I choose life.”

Jan decisively decided to live the “you” way not only on that day but every day. She lived to the fullest but always thought of how her actions would impact others. By doing this, she lived a life worth living as the love of my life, as a parent, as a human rights activist, and as a Jewish woman.

Our son, Mike’s video, celebrates all these parts of her life. Even when Jan came home for hospice, she lived her final days fully with love and passion. 

Love Never Dies

As I have previously written, I need to do now what love requires us to do the person you love someone who is no longer with you. 

Jan and I both liked Merrit Malloy’s poem Epitaph. It was read at her funeral and will be recited at mine. The last stanza explains what I must do to preserve her memory and legacy.

Love doesn’t die,
People do.
So, when all that’s left of me
Is love,
Give me away.

Merrit Malloy, Epitaph

To avoid living on an island of grief, I need to give her love away. I do not do this because I no longer love her. I do it because I love her more now than ever. 

Celebrate Jan

By giving her love away, it will be returned to me more robust. Not only will this preserve her memory and legacy, but it will also make us all stronger. By sharing her love, we will be inspired and empowered to make the world a better place. 

If my choice is either an island of grief or a community of love, I will always choose love. 

Giving Jan’s love away is the true meaning of my love for her! Jan lived a life worth living!

Love never dies!

How did Jan and I meet?

Does Jan still have her wedding ring?

What was our last conversation?

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The White Hot

Read: November 2025

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The White Hot: A Novel

by Quiara Alegría Hudes

“The White Hot” by Quiara Alegría Hudes is a letter from a mother to her daughter, reflecting on a moment of abandonment that stretches from ten days to ten years. It offers an explanation rather than an apology. Hudes tells April’s story—spiritual and sensual, fierce and humorous—using delicate lyricism and tough love. Through this narrative, Hudes transforms April’s struggle for self-discovery into an unforgettable short epic.

April is a young mother raising her daughter in a multigenerational home filled with unspoken secrets and loud arguments. Her only refuge is the locked bathroom, where she plugs her ears into an ambient soundscape and repeats a mantra: “dead inside.” This continues until one day, as she feels herself spiraling toward the volcanic rage she calls “the white hot,” an inner voice tells her to simply walk away.

She goes to a bus station and asks for a one-way ticket to the furthest destination. This ticket takes her from her Philadelphia home to the threshold of a wilderness, marking the start of a nameless quest—an accidental journey that awakens her, nearly kills her, and leads her to an impossible choice.

As April discovers the key to freeing herself and her family from a cycle of generational trauma through her painful and absurd journey,

Quiara Alegría Hudes is a Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright known for her plays “Water by the Spoonful” and “In the Heights,” the latter of which won the Tony Award for Best Musical. She also adapted this musical for the screen.

Her memoir, “My Broken Language,” was longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal. Hudes has written essays published in prominent outlets, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Cut, The Nation, and American Theater Magazine. Additionally, she co-founded the prison writing program Emancipated Stories with her cousin Sean.

Discover your next favorite book and dive into a world of curated, exciting reads by purchasing through my links. You’ll have access to a diverse selection of books that I’ve personally vetted to ensure quality and enjoyment. Additionally, by supporting these selections, you’ll help me continue to provide you with more personalized recommendations. I earn a small commission from your purchase, which allows me to buy and share even more books with you. Your support truly makes a difference!

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Private Rites

Read: February 2026

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Private Rites: A Novel

by Julia Armfield

From Julia Armfield, the beloved and award-winning author of Our Wives Under the Sea, comes a speculative reimagining of King Lear. Private Rites centers on three sisters navigating queer love and loss in a world that is drowning. It has been raining for so long that the landscape has reshaped itself, and old rituals and religions are beginning to resurface. Sisters Isla, Irene, and Agnes have not spoken to each other in some time.

However, when their father—an architect who was both cruel and revered—passes away, their lives are forever changed. His death offers the sisters an opportunity to come together in a new way. In the grand glass house they grew up in, their father’s most famous creation, the sisters sort through the secrets and memories he left behind, until a revelation in his will shatters their fragile bond.

The sisters are more estranged than ever, and their lives spin out of control: Irene’s relationship is straining at the seams, Isla’s ex-wife keeps calling, and cynical Agnes is falling in love for the first time. But something even more sinister might be unfolding, something related to their mother’s long-ago disappearance and the strangers who have always seemed unusually interested in the sisters’ lives. Soon, it becomes clear that the sisters were chosen for a very particular purpose, one with shattering implications for their family and their imperiled world.

Julia Armfield is the author of the novels Private Rites and Our Wives Under the Sea, which was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award and the 2022 Goodreads Choice Award for Best Horror and Best Debut Novel, and the story collection salt slow. Her work has appeared in Granta, Lighthouse, Analog Magazine, Neon, and Best British Short Stories 2019 and 2021. She is the winner of the White Review Short Story Prize and a Pushcart Prize, and shortlisted for the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Awards in 2019. She lives and works in London.

Discover your next favorite book and dive into a world of curated, exciting reads by purchasing through my links. You’ll have access to a diverse selection of books I’ve personally vetted for quality and enjoyment. Additionally, by supporting these selections, you’ll help me continue to provide you with more personalized recommendations. I earn a small commission from your purchase, which allows me to buy and share even more books with you. Your support truly makes a difference!

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Half in Shadow

Read: December 2021

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Half in Shadow: A Novel

by Gemma Liviero

Half in Shadow by Gemma Liviero is an unforgettable novel about courage, love, and consequences at the dawn of World War I. In German-occupied Belgium, a tragic loss forces Josephine Descharmes to navigate dangerous new territory. By day it’s compliance, serving German officers at the Hotel Métropole. By night it’s resistance, working with her brothers underground to help Allied soldiers and civilians across the border into Holland. Both paths put her and her family at significant risk.

Before Jan’s death, I preferred to read non-fiction or fiction about historical events. Although I had read nothing by the author before this novel, I decided to read based on the summary. When I finished the book, the author described her goal as a writer in a manner that confirmed my decision.

“Much of my aim in the stories I write is to put human faces, be they fictional, to the many who lived through these events and imagine the experiences and reactions by innocent parties thrust into such situations.”

— Half in Shadow: A Novel by Gemma Liviero

Josephine’s involvement in the resistance begins slowly and gains strength with every page. Her brothers Eugene, Xavier, and her mother become realistic due to the precise writing of Ms. Liviero.

Arthur, the English soldier who falls in love with Josephine, becomes an equal member of the resistance and the family. Franz, the German in love with Josephine, is not as strongly defined as appropriate as he is the enemy.

The Amazon overview provides a brief overview of the novel.

As Josephine struggles to keep her family safe, Arthur, a grief-stricken English soldier trapped behind enemy lines, finds purpose and hope with Josephine and her work. Meanwhile, Franz, a German officer remorseful for war casualties, offers her protection and opportunity. These two men from opposing sides will open her heart and test her loyalties.

Amid the sorrows of war and threats of mortal danger and betrayal, Josephine must steer her fate. In a country deprived of freedom, she will make an impossible choice—one that will forever impact the family she cherishes and the man she loves.

The book’s conclusion, which I will not reveal, brings together all of the novel’s threads in a way that reminded me of the power of love and family.

This is one of the best books I have ever read. I highly recommend it.

Half in Shadow is the first time I have gotten a book from Amazon First Reads. I highly recommend First Reads as a way to read books earlier than their regular release. Half in Shadow is not scheduled to be published until January 1, 2022.

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Ruth

Read: August 2025

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Ruth: A Novel

by Kate Riley

“Ruth” by Kate Riley is a captivating and thought-provoking exploration of a woman’s journey through the complexities of life within a tightly-knit and devout community. The narrative intricately weaves together the nuances of faith, tradition, and individual desire, encouraging readers to confront their own deeply held beliefs about the nature of fulfillment and purpose.

Ruth was raised in a snow globe of Christian communism, a world without private property, television, or tolerance for idle questions. Every morning, she braids her hair and wears the same costume, sings the same breakfast song in a family room identical to every other family room in the community; every one of these moments is meant to be a prayer, but to Ruth, they remain puzzles.

Her life is seen in glimpses through childhood, marriage, and motherhood, as she tries to manage her own perilous curiosity in a community built on holy mystery. Is she happy? Is this happiness?

Kate Riley was raised in New York City, and this book is her final work.

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Seascraper

Read: November 2025

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Seascraper: A Novel

by Benjamin Wood

Haunting, timeless, and stunningly atmospheric, Seascraper by Benjamin Wood explores the story of a young man whose quiet existence is dramatically altered in just one day. His circumstances confine him, yet he yearns for a sense of fulfillment that extends far beyond the world he knows. The novel has been longlisted for the 2025 Booker Prize.

Twenty-year-old Thomas Flett lives a slow, deliberate life with his mother in Longferry, Northern England, working his grandpa’s trade as a shanker. He rises early to take his horse and cart to the drizzly shore to scrape for shrimp, and spends the afternoon selling his wares, trying to wash away the salt and sea-scum, pining for his neighbor, Joan Wyeth, and playing songs on his guitar. At heart, he is a folk musician, but this remains a private dream.

Then a mysterious American arrives in town and enlists Thomas’s help in finding a perfect location for his next movie. Though skeptical at first, Thomas learns to trust the stranger, Edgar, and, shaken from the drudgery of his days by the promise of Hollywood glamour, begins to see a different future for himself. But how much of what Edgar claims is true, and how far can his inspiration carry Thomas?

Benjamin Wood was born in 1981 and grew up in Merseyside. Seascraper is his fifth novel. His previous works were shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Award, the Commonwealth Book Prize, the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award, the RSL Encore Award, the CWA Gold Dagger Award, and the European Union Prize for Literature. In 2014, he won France’s Prix du Roman Fnac.

He is a senior lecturer in creative writing at King’s College, London, and lives in Surrey with his wife and sons.

Discover your next favorite book and dive into a world of curated, exciting reads by purchasing through my links. You’ll have access to a diverse selection of books that I’ve personally vetted to ensure quality and enjoyment. Additionally, by supporting these selections, you’ll help me continue to provide you with more personalized recommendations. I earn a small commission from your purchase, which allows me to buy and share even more books with you. Your support truly makes a difference!

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The School for Good Mothers

Read: February 2023

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The School for Good Mothers

by Jessamine Chan

The School for Good Mothers by Jessamine Chan is a searing page-turner that is also a transgressive novel of ideas about the perils of “perfect” upper-middle-class parenting; the violence enacted upon women by both the state and, at times, one another; the systems that separate families; and the boundlessness of love, The School for Good Mothers introduces, in Frida, an everywoman for the ages.

Although it has been forty-two years since I became a parent, I still remember the anxiety of being a father. What if I could not be a good dad? Fortunately, I never had a bad like Frida. or lived in an age where parents would be sent to “a Big Brother-like institution that measures the success or failure of a mother’s devotion.”

Reading The School for Good Mothers was a reminder that solutions like this are possible unless we are willing to invest in families so that the skills and support are there to resolve any issues in the home. As a widow, I found Frida’s inner dialogue comparable to the early stages of my grief journey—the total isolation and fear of failing dominated my first months of mourning.

The School for Good Mothers had been on my book list since the middle of last year. I recommend it without reservations! Jan would have already read it, and we would be debating its fine points.

The Goodreads summary provides an overview,

In this taut and explosive debut novel, one lapse in judgement lands a young mother in a government reform program where custody of her child hangs in the balance.

Frida Liu is struggling. She doesn’t have a career worthy of her Chinese immigrant parents’ sacrifices. She can’t persuade her husband, Gust, to give up his wellness-obsessed younger mistress. Only with Harriet, their cherubic daughter, does Frida finally attain the perfection expected of her. Harriet may be all she has, but she is just enough.

Until Frida has a very bad day.

The state has its eyes on mothers like Frida. The ones who check their phones, letting their children get injured on the playground; who let their children walk home alone. Because of one moment of poor judgment, a host of government officials will now determine if Frida is a candidate for a Big Brother-like institution that measures the success or failure of a mother’s devotion.

Faced with the possibility of losing Harriet, Frida must prove that a bad mother can be redeemed. That she can learn to be good.

Using dark wit to explore the pains and joys of the deepest ties that bind us, Chan has written a modern literary classic.

The Jan Lilien Education Fund sponsors ongoing sustainability and environmental awareness programs. Gifts made this month; I will match dollar-for-dollar. All donations are tax-deductible.

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