Richard W. shared a post on November 11, 2023
Kiss

When is a Kiss More Than a Kiss?

My First, Last, and Maybe Next Kiss

Estimated reading time: 2 minutes, 31 seconds

Kiss

Half a century ago, I attended a party in the Inwood area of Manhattan. Jan had invited me to the party through a mutual friend since I had met her a year earlier but had only just heard back from her. Upon my arrival, she purposely spilled wine on my head. We laughed and began a private conversation as if a bubble of silence surrounded us, and we couldn’t hear the other partygoers’ noise. When my friend Mark told me that he and my Williamsburg friends were leaving, I knew I had to make a decision.

I felt uncertain. I wanted to kiss Jan to express my feelings, but I wasn’t sure if she would be receptive to it. If I didn’t make a move, she might think of me as just a friend, and I might not get another chance. “I’ll meet you at the subway in a minute,” I said half-heartedly to Mark. I stood up from my chair and leaned towards Jan. Kissing her forehead would be a safe option. However, I kissed the top of her head instead. She smiled and lifted her head, so I kissed her forehead. She looked up at me and smiled. We shared our first kiss, and it was the sweetest kiss in the universe.

Thirty months ago, Jan had been home for close to a month for hospice care. On May 3, I woke up and went downstairs for breakfast. I walked to the hospital bed and leaned over to kiss her forehead. As I approached her lips, I said, “I love you!” Her voice was weak, but she responded clearly and without reservation, “I love you too!” We kissed. It was another sweet kiss, and I had no idea at that moment that it would be our last kiss.

Moving forward as a widow, living alone seemed unimaginable. But I took it one day at a time and made progress. Over time, I found that grief was gradually fading away. Although my love for my wife remains, I realized that people die, not love. The thought of kissing someone new never crossed my mind after her, but I have found joy in loving someone again. The more I longed to kiss her, the less probable it seemed. Still, I know it will happen if it is meant to be. Recently, on the fiftieth anniversary of my first kiss, I was reminded that some kisses hold more significance than just a simple peck. The prospect of kissing the woman I love fills me with joy and hope.

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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Lovers

When Richard Met Jan!

We embraced each other tightly, and our lips met in a deep and passionate kiss. It was even more intense than the sweet and lovely kisses we had already shared. I felt like I was flying, and if I hadn't worn my boots, I was sure this kiss would have knocked my socks off. This was the moment that sealed our love forever. I had always dreamed of finding true love, and now I had finally found it. Love is a beautiful thing that lasts forever and never dies.
Richard W. Brown November 11, 2021

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Richard W. shared a post on
Kiss

Jan’s Sweet Kisses

My First, Last, and Maybe Next Kiss

Estimated reading time: 2 minutes, 31 seconds
Jan and Richard

Jan’s Sweet Kisses

I enjoyed kissing Jan very much! I wish every day I could have just one more kiss from Jan. Out of all the kisses we shared, two are particularly special: the first and the last.
Richard W. Brown October 30, 2021

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The Girl in His Shadow

Read: July 2022

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The Girl in His Shadow

by Audrey Blake

I completed the Big Library Read of 2022, The Girl in His Shadow, by Audrey Blake. I highly recommend it. The Girl in His Shadow is historical fiction about one woman who believed in scientific medicine before the world believed in her. Ms. Blake has a split personality— because she is the creative alter ego of writing duo Jaima Fixsen and Regina Sirois, two authors who met as finalists of a writing contest and have been writing together happily ever since.

The pen name – Audrey Blake – was in response to the publishers recommending a more straightforward author’s name. Regina’s daughter is named Audrey, and Jaima’s son is Blake.

I cannot praise this book enough. It was well written, and the characters, especially Nora Beady, jumped off the page. I recommend The Girl in His Shadow by Audrey Blake and encourage you to read the book and share your thoughts.

For more information and to start reading The Girl in His Shadow by Audrey Blake, visit: Big Library Read.

The Goodreads summary provides an overview.

Raised by the eccentric surgeon Dr. Horace Croft after losing her parents to a deadly pandemic, the orphan Nora Beady knows little about conventional life. While other young ladies were raised to busy themselves with needlework and watercolors, Nora was trained to perfect her suturing and anatomical illustrations of dissections.

Women face dire consequences if caught practicing medicine, but in Croft’s private clinic Nora is his most trusted–and secret–assistant. That is until the new surgical resident Dr. Daniel Gibson arrives. Dr. Gibson has no idea that Horace’s bright and quiet young ward is a surgeon more qualified and ingenuitive than even himself. In order to protect Dr. Croft and his practice from scandal and collapse Nora must learn to play a new and uncomfortable role–that of a proper young lady.

But pretense has its limits. Nora cannot turn away and ignore the suffering of patients even if it means giving Gibson the power to ruin everything she’s worked for. And when she makes a discovery that could change the field forever, Nora faces an impossible choice. Remain invisible and let the men around her take credit for her work, or let the world see her for what she is–even if it means being destroyed by her own legacy.

The Jan Lilien Education Fund sponsors ongoing sustainability and environmental awareness programs. All donations are tax-deductible.

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Roses, in the Mouth of a Lion

Read: January 2023

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Roses, in the Mouth of a Lion

by Bushra Rehman

Roses, in the Mouth of a Lion by Bushra Rehman is a book I encouraged friends to read before I finished reading it. I highly recommend this page-turner novel, which is punctuated by both joy and loss, full of ’80s music and beloved books. Roses, in the Mouth of a Lion is a must-read coming-of-age story of Razia Mirza, a girl struggling to reconcile her heritage and faith with her desire to be true to herself.

Razia Mirza, the protagonist, leaps off the page or screen. Bushra Rehman describes Corona with prose that is vibrant and clear-eyed. When I lived in Brooklyn, I had, on a few occasions, meetings in Corona a decade before the novel’s setting. Reading the book made me remember that time and place and understand intuitively the world that Razia was struggling to reconcile.

Razia’s choice between her heart and her family is one I will not reveal. However, the novel defines the conflicts between the Pakistani-American community and the love that Razia and Anglea experience in clear prose, and the reader can easily accept various resolutions.

The choice that Rasia makes left me desiring to know what happens next. I have added Bushra Rehman to my favorite authors and plan to read more of her novels.

I had this novel on my list for the last month but could not get to it until now. I wish I had read it sooner. It is the eighth book I have read in 2023.

The Goodreads summary provides an overview,

Razia Mirza grows up amid the wild grape vines and backyard sunflowers of Corona, Queens, with her best friend, Saima, by her side. Razia’s heart is broken when a family rift drives the girls apart. She finds solace in Taslima, a new girl in her close-knit Pakistani-American community. They embark on a series of small rebellions: listening to scandalous music, wearing miniskirts, and cutting school to explore the city.

When Razia is accepted to Stuyvesant, a prestigious high school in Manhattan, the gulf between the person she is and the daughter her parents want her to be, widens. At Stuyvesant, Razia meets Angela and is attracted to her in a way that blossoms into a new understanding. When an Aunty discovers their relationship in the community, Razia must choose between her family and her future.

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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20 Under 40

Read: January 2019

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20 Under 40 Fiction

by Various Writers Under 40

Short Stories that Will Define the Future of American Letters

The New Yorker’s collection of short stories – 20 Under 40 – is a collection of twenty writers “whose work will help define the future of American letters.”

Some of these I had read in The New Yorker and others I had missed. Either way, they were a pleasure to read.

As The New Yorker wrote,

The range of voices is extraordinary. There is the lyrical realism of Nell Freudenberger, Philipp Meyer, C. E. Morgan, and Salvatore Scibona; the satirical comedy of Joshua Ferris and Gary Shteyngart; and the genre-bending tales of Jonathan Safran Foer, Nicole Krauss, and Téa Obreht. David Bezmozgis and Dinaw Mengestu offer clear eyed portraits of immigration and identity; Sarah Shun-lien Bynum, ZZ Packer, and Wells Tower offer voice-driven, idiosyncratic narratives. Then there are the haunting sociopolitical stories of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Daniel Alarcón, and Yiyun Li, and the metaphysical fantasies of Chris Adrian, Rivka Galchen, and Karen Russell.

Each of these writers reminds us why we read. And each is aiming for greatness: fighting to get and to hold our attention in a culture that is flooded with words, sounds, and pictures; fighting to surprise, to entertain, to teach, and to move not only us but generations of readers to come. A landmark collection, 20 Under 40 stands as a testament to the vitality of fiction today.

I recommend this collection of short stories.

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The Friend: A Novel

Read: September 2022

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The Friend: A Novel

by Sigrid Nunez

The Friend: A Novel by Sigrid Nunez is a moving story of love, friendship, grief, healing, and the magical bond between a woman and her dog. When a woman unexpectedly loses her lifelong best friend and mentor, she finds herself burdened with the unwanted dog he has left behind. I understand the positives and negatives of having a dog help with grief, but I cannot have one where I live.

One line that resonated with me was,

You can’t hurry, love, as the song goes. You can’t hurry, grief, either.

Far too often, widows are in a hurry, not unlike young lovers. We need to learn patience and remind ourselves that the more we love, the more we will grieve.

I often said that Jan would replace me with a dog if she survived me.

I recommend this book.

The Goodreads summary provides a concise overview,

The woman’s own battle against grief is intensified by the mute suffering of the dog, a huge Great Dane traumatized by the inexplicable disappearance of its master, and by the threat of eviction: dogs are prohibited in her apartment building.

While others worry that grief has made her a victim of magical thinking, the woman refuses to be separated from the dog except for brief periods of time. Isolated from the rest of the world, increasingly obsessed with the dog’s care, determined to read its mind and fathom its heart, she comes dangerously close to unraveling. But while troubles abound, rich and surprising rewards lie in store for both of them.

Elegiac and searching, The Friend is both a meditation on loss and a celebration of human-canine devotion.

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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Apples Never Fall

Read: January 2022

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Apples Never Fall

by Liane Moriarty

Apples Never Fall by Liane Moriarty is a novel that looks at marriage, siblings, and how the people we love the most can hurt us the deepest. The Delaney family love one another dearly—it’s just that sometimes they want to murder each other.

If your mother was missing, would you tell the police? Even if the most obvious suspect was your father? The four grown Delaney siblings face this dilemma.

This book is a page-turner. With all of the characters having issues unrelated to their mission mother, they have a life with many mysteries and rivalries. I sometimes wanted to know more about their lives instead of the missing mum.

Although I will not reveal the conclusion, it is clear how a missing parent could appear to be the crime of the century.

According to Goodreads,

The Delaneys are fixtures in their community. The parents, Stan and Joy, are the envy of all of their friends. They’re killers on the tennis court, and off it, their chemistry is palpable. But after fifty years of marriage, they’ve finally sold their famed tennis academy and are ready to start what should be the golden years of their lives. So why are Stan and Joy so miserable?

The four Delaney children―Amy, Logan, Troy, and Brooke―were tennis stars in their own right, yet as their father will tell you, none of them had what it took to go all the way. But that’s okay, now that they’re all successful grown-ups. In addition, there is the beautiful possibility of grandchildren on the horizon.

One night a stranger named Savannah knocks on Stan and Joy’s door, bleeding after a fight with her boyfriend. The Delaneys are more than happy to give her the small kindness she sorely needs. If only that were all, she wanted.

Later, when Joy goes missing and Savannah is nowhere to be found, the police question the one person who remains: Stan. But for someone who claims to be innocent, he, like many spouses, seems to have a lot to hide. Two of the Delaney children think their father is innocent. Two are not so sure―but as the two sides square off against each other in perhaps their most important match ever, all of the Delaneys will start to reexamine their shared family history in a very new light.

I recommend this book.

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Ahab's Wife: Or, The Star-gazer: A Novel

Read: August 2021

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Ahab’s Wife: Or, The Star-gazer

by Sena Jeter Naslund

Ahab’s Wife: Or, The Star-gazer by Sena Jeter Naslund is a book I could not put down once I finished the first chapter. “Captain Ahab was neither my first husband nor my last.” is one of the most-recognized first sentences in literature–along with “Call me Ishmael.”

Sena Jeter Naslund has created a transcendent heroine – Una Spenser – who is as memorable as Ahab. Una’s universe spans a time that begins to redefine both women and men.

After a spellbinding opening scene, the tale flashes back to Una’s childhood in Kentucky; her idyllic adolescence with her aunt and uncle’s family at a lighthouse near New Bedford; her adventures disguised as a cabin boy on a whaling ship; her first marriage to a fellow survivor who descends into violent madness; courtship and marriage to Ahab; life as mother and a rich captain’s wife in Nantucket; involvement with Frederick Douglass; and a man who is in Nantucket researching his novel about his adventures on her ex-husband’s ship.

Ahab’s Wife is a breathtaking, magnificent, and uplifting story of one woman’s spiritual journey, informed by the spirit of the greatest American novel, but taking it beyond tragedy to redemptive triumph.

Having read this book, I can easily understand why my life loved the book and encouraged me to read it. Her life story was much like Una’s, an uplifting story of her spiritual journey and her quest to repair the world.

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