Burnt Chocolate Stories

“The last good night's sleep you’ll have is the night before your first child is born.” I laughed at the woman who told me that. I was eight months pregnant at the time with our first child and thought she was daft. What did she know anyway? Her three boys were teenagers. One had just gotten his driver’s license. Of course she was freaked. When her youngest left for college, I was certain she’d sleep soundly once again. However, my plan to confirm that belief never materialized. We moved back to Chicago and lost touch with each other. Besides, if we had stayed connected, she'd have had the last laugh on me. I haven’t had a really solid, devil may care, snooze until 11 in the morning sleep for the last forty years. Any hope of regaining such a night was abandoned long ago. “Before I had children, no one told me how completely absorbed I’d become in my children’s lives,” a friend told me as we talked about our children, past dreams and unrealized expectations. “You’re only as...

Some days. . . Black clouds swarm above my head. The weight of ALS bears down with a force so huge it takes my breath away. I have to wrench myself free, force myself to do something, anything, that will let in the fresh air. I’ve become difficult, I know, when I’m terrified and want only to stay in bed, under the covers and sleep forever. But on other days. . . I let optimism rule. I believe we will overcome these terrible circumstances. I project into the future and imagine Ben physically vibrant the way he was years ago when I drove him to the airport for his third year as a college exchange student in Paris, France. He hoisted a huge duffel over his shoulder as if it weighed a few pounds, kissed my cheek and was gone. When we visited him four months later, he’d already made dozens of friends who called out ‘Binyamin’ as they waved him into their lives. Ben lived in an apartment, a boat, then someone’s loft, while he studied Decontructionism, a difficult philosophy to compre...