by Rolf Erickson
There is an ice cream shop in Eugene, Oregon which produces an unbelievably rich and creamy product. It is called Prince Puckler’s Gourmet Ice Cream.

My father loved ice cream. Here’s a favorite memory from my childhood, growing up in Portland, Oregon. We’d turn off Barbur Boulevard and head west on Capital Highway. About a mile later, on the right-hand side of the road, there was a place called Peterson’s Ice Cream. They had what was at the time, the unimaginable selection of 19 flavors. My father would pretend that the car itself was pulling over to the right, off the road into the parking lot of Peterson’s.

Excerpt by Craig Nagasawa from the book: Irene Pijoan, (1953-2004) Retrospective
This book started with a dream of bringing Irene’s work to Switzerland. The place she was born will be the culture that her works’ journeys start again. She never forgot the heritage that was her history, her home.

By Timothy Tosta
In our training, through the Zen Hospice Project, to serve at the bedside of the dying at San Francisco’s Laguna Honda Hospital, we are given the Five Precepts Of Hospice Care:
One: Bring your whole self to the bedside.
Two: Welcome everything, push away nothing.
Three: Find a place of rest in the middle of things.
Four: Cultivate the don’t know mind.
Five: Don’t wait.

by Anne Addison
My mother left me a lot of things – children’s books, family photos, reams of music, her heavily annotated copy of the Messiah, art, 19-year’s worth of teaching supplies, linens, more linens, my great-aunt’s Spode china, a love of Brubeck, sense of rhythm, and most importantly, the ability and desire to spontaneously burst into song.
But the one I treasure most is a newspaper clipping she kept taped to her computer monitor…

by Kathleen Buckstaff
I just finished writing, producing and performing a one-woman show at The Theatre Artist Studio in Phoenix. The story is called “The Tiffany Box, a love remembered.” I used to work as a humor columnist for The Los Angeles Times and The Arizona Republic. When my mom was diagnosed with cancer, I stopped writing my column and started caring for her.

By Melinda Welsh
Sometimes the death of a loved one comes in an instant. But often it takes a slow drain of the calendar to get to the end. In these cases, the family endures while the dying one suffers physical hell mixed with periods of lucidity, joy, even wisdom. So it was for my brother Marty.
Marty, 50 at the time of his diagnosis, chose a “damn the torpedoes” attitude toward his disease in the early years and became a one-man argument for carpe diem. A family physician in nearby Placerville, he remained loyal to his patients and continued to practice medicine as long as he could despite the diagnosis.