I've selected a few paragraphs from the opening "Invitation" of Invisible Connections: Living the Paradoxes of Loss, the narrative that sets up the story depicted in the poems and the journal entries.  You can also sample a few poems with their preceding journal entry, all taken from the earlier sections of the book.  The Table of Contents lists many of the over 60 entries this book encompasses.

Excerpt from the "Invitation"

            .....

            Four hours later I woke up, wide-awake and alert-jet lag.  I glanced over to Paul, who was lying sound asleep on his side, curled up like a little boy.  It had stayed warm so that we didn't even need a cover during the night.  Relieved that at least Paul was still asleep, I crawled out of bed and quietly crept down the oak staircase, doing my best to avoid the squeaky step, the only spot left in the house that resisted our combined renovation skills.

            When I stepped onto the back deck, a gorgeous sunrise, gentle breeze, and chirping birds welcomed me.  Cardinals, gold finches, blue jays and monarch butterflies, flitting here and there, kept me company for the next two hours while I enjoyed my coffee, sorted mail and surveyed the array of dead plants around me.  The lawn resembled a field covered in straw.  How long will it take for life to return?

            Out of the blue, I felt restless.  The bells from the clock tower struck six o'clock. I still had not heard or seen any sign of Paul, who tended to pride himself as an early riser.  He loved to read foreign newspapers online first thing in the morning.  The fresh smell of coffee beside my bed often awakened me, along with a few articles right off the printer that would await me in the bathroom, so I could soak in the tub while catching up on the latest news from Germany, France and England.  Suddenly out of breath, I raced upstairs.  I turned the corner and entered the bedroom.

            My entire life dissolved in front of my eyes.  Knives pierced my body...

Keep scrolling down for a sampling of a journal entry that is accompanied by the poem "HOLD ME TIGHT"

October 10, 2001

            Two long months have passed, 61 days exactly since you died.  Has it been that long for you?  You have gone so far away, such an eternity ago.  How many life times?  I've stopped living because this indescribable pain, ever-present, is devouring my soul.

            Why did we not have a chance to say good-bye?  Why can I not dream of you at least?  What's going on?  Even though I spend my entire time in the past, my dreams don't seem to reflect that.  Is there a part of me that doesn't want to be there-impossible!?

            Could you hold me one last time?  I suppose I must be really selfish because this is all about me.  I don't even want to know if you would like to come back, be here, or hold me.  All I know is that I need you and I cannot get my head wrapped around anything else.  I'm shaking from the inside out.  Everything is dark and cold.  If only I knew where you were!  I know I used to believe and think I understood, but not now.  Now, I really don't know.  I doubt all I ever believed, all I ever thought I understood.  Nothing makes sense.  Through you I could make sense, even though we often took opposing views, and perhaps it was precisely that tension that kept us balanced.

            Time used to race by in the past.  Not any more-now barely crawling at a snail's pace, causing every single detail of my day to jump out at me, leaving gaping wounds, demanding attention, with no way around them and at the same time, with no way through them either.  I am stuck, stuck in the abyss, held there by despair and the burning desire to be with you.

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