Alison Garwood Jones

Remains of the day

Originally published in May 2013 in Blog

I got a lot of moving feedback the first time I wrote about my mother, Catherine, in The Long Goodbye, published three years ago on this blog. After she died last Christmas, I expanded on the story of our relationship and turned it into a magazine piece for Glow Magazine. It’s in the May issue, on newsstands […]

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Show up

Originally published in April 2013 in Blog

What was true then is true now: focus and discipline will take you far. I showed up at the kitchen table almost every day of my young school life. It was “homework central” in our house (well, I made it so).  And sometimes it was a group effort. My mother had a day job, but […]

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Down came the snow

Originally published in January 2013 in Blog

When her emotions were reeling And her writing hand couldn’t keep up — Or even find an entry point on the page — She read obsessively. Indiscriminately. And, as Dylan Thomas liked to say, With her eyes hanging out.

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Goodbye, Mommy

Originally published in December 2012 in Blog

Catherine Lucy Garwood-Jones (1928-2012), Hamiltonian extraordinaire, died on Sunday, Dec. 9 after a ten-year battle with Alzheimer’s. Pre-deceased by her husband Trevor in 2011, Team “Cath and Trev” changed the face of the city they loved so much — he through architecture and she through her commitment to health care, education, music and family. Catherine’s […]

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Last day

Originally published in June 2011 in Blog

Because I find writing about my dad more fun than crying. Happy Father’s Day, Papa Jones     Our Mt. Rushmore, TGJ (©AGJ) My dad was still hanging in the air inside his home a few hours after he died (it’s now been 12 weeks). I took note of his presence before the march of […]

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Christmas past

Originally published in December 2010 in Blog

Knitting was the last thing my mother knew how to do. I miss her — especially at this time of year.

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What will your legacy be?

Originally published in November 2010 in Blog

*9:00 am: This post is dedicated to my friend, Monica Scrivener. She died on Saturday. I found out ten minutes ago on Facebook. In high school, Mon and I used to sit beside each other in art class and make smartass comments. I’m heartbroken. When I’m dead and all physical reminders of the life I […]

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Move it!

Originally published in June 2010 in Blog

On some mornings, I get up thinking about Twyla Tharp (left), the American choreographer. And I’m not even a dancer, I’m a writer. I don’t know Twyla, but I do know that she moves like Fred Astaire (leading, not following) and once directed a line of classical ballerinas to sing en pointe. Years of studying the […]

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Woof!

Originally published in June 2010 in Blog

The front hallway of the house I grew up in was a grotto of potted plants and hanging baskets placed in and amongst a collection of modern art made from highly polished cast steel. A floating staircase linking the hallway to a second level cut through the middle of this exhibition of vines and metal […]

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In conversation with Maureen Judge

Originally published in May 2010 in Blog

In a display of human nature at its worst, I once worked with a fashionista who sneered, “Old ladies smell like sour milk.” Wow, I thought, if women can be this disdainful of their mother’s generation, we’ve got a problem. Judging by popular culture, society as a whole finds post-fertile women not worth looking at […]

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