Paula Span

Welcoming a Grandchild, Right in the Delivery Room

January 1, 2021 by Paula Span

When my granddaughter was born, my own role was very clear: Keep a packed bag handy. Head for Brooklyn as soon as my daughter, Emma, called to say she was on the way to the hospital with her husband. Move into their apartment for the duration to walk and feed Pearl, their sweet ancient Labrador. Wait by the phone.

Being assigned to canine care was perfectly fine; I was glad to be useful. It never occurred to me that I could actually be in the delivery room when this baby arrived, and it didn’t occur to my daughter to invite me, or anyone else.

Emma wanted a quiet, private birth with her partner and their nurse-midwife. Her own birth 30-some years earlier had been much the same.

For My Grandchild, the Moon

January 1, 2021 by Paula Span

What I call Bubbe’s Folly began when a catalog for a British pottery maker showed up in my mailbox a few months ago, intended for a former tenant who’d moved away, not for me. But I leafed idly through it — and spotted something wonderful.

The earthenware plate had blue and white stars sprinkled around the rim and, charmingly painted in the center, my granddaughter’s favorite bird. Because the pattern was being discontinued, I could buy both the plate and a matching mug for a reasonable 30 bucks. I headed for my computer to place an order.

That wasn’t the folly part.

When Romance Is a Scam

January 1, 2021 by Paula Span

Ellen Floren was not looking for love.

The criminals who lured her into an online scam last summer approached her not on a dating site, where she might have been wary, but through the neighborhood hub called Nextdoor.

A man who said his name was James Gibson said he’d noticed her profile on the site. He also lived in her Chicago neighborhood, he told her, specifying a street. Could they have a conversation?

The Failing Light: Why did a rising young poet plunge into despair, taking her own life and the life of her 2-year-old son?

January 1, 2021 by Paula Span

The memorial service proved a study in numbed, dignified restraint.

Reetika Vazirani was so warm and open, so brilliant, so beautiful, a procession of mourners said, taking the lectern to share their recollections. Reetika, the gifted, painstaking poet; the encouraging but rigorous teacher; the magnanimous friend. And her son, Jehan, such a captivating 2-year-old. A sprite attending a grown-up friend’s party in a wizard’s cape. A wonder, learning his colors in Spanish — azul, amarillo, verde. In the photos displayed at the entrance to the room — in which he rode a carousel, perched atop a slide, or nestled on Reetika’s lap — he was always beaming.

Before long, the service last July at the National Press Club took on the feeling and cadences of a poetry reading. That was fitting: The room was full of poets, and poetry had given Reetika her place in the world. One friend chose Edna St. Vincent Millay. A colleague from William & Mary offered a few lines of Langston Hughes. A poem by Yusef Komunyakaa, Jehan’s father, began “I am five”; the friend who read it wanted to evoke an age Jehan would never reach.