Raquel Martina Martinez

It took twenty days for his body to get here from Vietnam.   In that time we grieved and tried to come to an acceptance that he was gone.   He was only twenty years old and the most out-going of our group. We all loved him. When we got word that he was here, we waited for his mother to call and let us know when we could go visit.  It’s been over forty-seven years so those memories are fuzzy. I think his body lay in state for three days or so, giving time for all friends and family to arrive for the burial. On the night before they closed his casket one final time, his mother took a medal he had given her to hold while he served his year in Vietnam and she pinned it on his chest. She spent time alone with him, just the two of them. She said it was just the two of them in the beginning; it would be just the two of them at the end. My son was twenty-one when he got deployed to Iraq. They gave us five days to get ready for his departure. In that time he made a will, a DNR, and a

Looking for something to read over the summer?  Our book club (five women) has been meeting since the spring of 2011.  We have read our share of books.  Most novels have been around for a while, so you should be able to find them at a good price.  We recommend you buy them from the publisher, so the author gets a royalty, but we have sometimes had to resort to buying them secondhand when we found them to be out of print. We have read our share of “forgettable” books, but we have also read many “keepers.” Many have been made or contracted to be made into movies, but the books are infinitely better. I will start with the most recent, the books we read so far that we recommend to others in 2014-2015 are: ·        Girl on a Train by Paula Hawkins ·        Storm Siren by Mary Weber ·        Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline ·        Life After Life by Kate Atkinson ·        Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand Books read from 2011-2013 that we still hold dear to our hearts:

She was five years old when he was born.  The following year, while she was learning to read and write, he was learning to walk and talk. They didn’t know each other.  Not yet. She lived here and he lived there , far away. They were both the middle child with an older brother and a younger sister, and they both lived in cities but spent most of their weekends in the country, breathing fresh air, running amok, and gaining wisdom and memories from their grandmothers. He was a typical teenager, learning to drive his father’s cars and getting into mischief, while she busied her life, graduating from high school and college. The year she married here , he graduated from high school and went to college there , and by the time he was ready to venture out in life, she was settled in her marriage with a child, a Master’s degree, and a career. He moved a little closer , a lot less far away, and he soon married and started his family. They each spent the next several years raising and l

The tiny woman walked into the exam room, introduced herself, and asked why I was there.  While I explained that my new PCP suggested I see a dermatologist, she scanned my face.  She called out to her assistant, “Two age spots on her cheeks.  Multiple skin tags around her neck.”  The assistant typed away on her laptop.  I told the doctor those spots and tags were hereditary; all my family had them. She said they weren’t dangerous.  I asked about the freckle that recently formed on my forehead.  “We’ll burn that too.” She said, reaching for a tall, thin, silver can the size of my Aveda “Control Force” hairspray. “Burn?” I asked.  Shouldn’t she discuss this with me first?  I have never had a doctor tell me what “we’ll” do without asking me first. “Is this going to hurt?” “Yes.”  She shook the can and weighed it in her hand, assessing how much was still in it. “We’ll freeze the age spots first.  This is liquid nitrogen.  It will hurt quite a bit but some of my patients say it