My goddaughter is eleven years old. Every week, she and I spend an afternoon and evening together, usually involving an outing—to a museum, or the library, or a huge model of the largest estuary on the west coast, more frequently referred to as San Francisco Bay. But sometimes we just hang out. When her mom’s…

Over dinner two weeks ago, my cousin Rick used the word “orphan” to describe how he felt this past Christmas, the first since his dad, my uncle, died last August (my aunt had died in 2002). I nodded in agreement and sympathy—my mom died in 2000; my dad in 2005—but I wondered, too: Can a…

His name was Peter, and he carried an L.L. Bean canvas bag, monogrammed and trimmed in forest green. It was December 28, 1988, and I noticed him at the gate. Preppy, but kind of cute. And then we boarded, and he took the seat next to mine. American Airlines; JFK to SFO; a DC-10, which…

Waiting is all around us, if we stop and pay attention. That’s one reason I love this time of year. We’re not used to waiting. A few days ago a Wal-Mart employee on Long Island was stampeded to death by impatient shoppers. As a child, I associated Advent with the stiff, single-sheeted Advent Calendars my…

Every Thursday afternoon for several months in 1966, my mother dressed me in a white dress with a big bow and puffy short sleeves, a Peter Pan collar and blue smocking, and drove me into the Haight-Ashbury. I wore socks that folded down and black patent-leather Mary Janes. My mother had pulled my hair straight…

Last week, I took my nine-year-old goddaughter to the de Young museum to see the museum’s current headliner: glass artist Dale Chihuly. For weeks, visitors have been lining up to see the candy-colored creations: giant balls in a boat; long thin tapers of lavender glass; dribbly chandeliers; fantastic disks resembling umbrellas or the undersides of…

My uncle died early this month. He and I were not close, and yet he was the last of his generation in my branch of the family. The burial was a brief affair. Four of us sat on folding chairs that had been covered in something resembling green fur, under a tent in 95-degree heat,…