Lookout columnist Claudia Sternbach continues to navigate her grief after losing Michael, her beloved husband of 40 years. Since his death, she has been inundated with flowers, food and love – reminders, she says, of how much Michael meant. She has also been plagued with thoughts of what is next. Should she change her life? Sell her house? Escape or embrace the memories?
Claudia Sternbach
Claudia Sternbach has lived in Santa Cruz for almost four decades and from 2022 to 2025 was a Lookout columnist. In 2023, she chronicled the sudden illness and then February 2024 death of her beloved husband of 40 years, Michael. She is the author of three memoirs, “Now Breathe” (Whiteaker Press), “Reading Lips” (Unbridled Books) and “Dear Goldie Hawn, Dear Leonard Cohen” (Paper Angel Press) and has also written columns for many newspapers, including the Santa Cruz Sentinel. She now lives in New York City.
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
How my World Market table showed me that a new life is possible as a widow
Lookout columnist Claudia Sternbach continues to chronicle her struggles as a widow. Here, she writes about the numbness in the days after her husband Michael’s death and how taking on a table-building project brought her solace.
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
I’m learning to live like a widow – and I do not like it
Lookout columnist Claudia Sternbach lost her beloved husband, Michael, on Feb. 25. In her first column since taking a break to grieve, she writes about the first days and months after he died, why she no longer can watch “Jeopardy!” and why books and piles of laundry give her solace in the night. She is chronicling her journey as a widow and sharing her questions as she tries to find a new normal.
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
How do we spend the last days of our lives? My husband is eating ice cream and calling the mortuary to tell them when to expect him
Michael, Lookout columnist Claudia Sternbach’s husband of 40 years, is deciding how he will die. He was diagnosed with soft tissue sarcoma cancer two weeks before Christmas. He is gathering those he loves around him, eating his favorite foods and watching Judge Judy reruns. Sternbach – who will take a break from writing for a bit to process the loss – writes with love and her characteristic humor to chronicle his last days.
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
A Valentine’s tale of caution: Take a moment and appreciate the tiny details of your life, like standing next to someone in the bathroom
Claudia Sternbach wishes she had known last Valentine’s Day would be the last time she would get chocolates from her husband. This year he is too sick to go outside, let alone fill her red, heart-shaped box from See’s. His sudden cancer diagnosis and decline have left her remembering all the tiny moments of joy that make up a life. She reminds us to do the same.
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Michael has always made excellent decisions in life; now he will determine how to die
Lookout columnist Claudia Sternbach continues to chronicle the terminal illness of her husband, Michael, who has chosen not to try to treat his cancer. They have been married for more than 40 years.
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
Stage 4 cancer: Do doctors worry about delivering bad news?
Lookout columnist Claudia Sternbach couldn’t sleep the night before her husband Michael’s cancer diagnosis. How do doctors, she wonders, prepare themselves to tell us hard things? The couple learned a few months ago that Michael has cancer, just as he was set to retire. She has been chronicling the emotional journey.
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If homemade cookies were a cancer cure, I’d be set
Lookout aging columnist Claudia Sternbach continues to chronicle her struggle as she waits to learn her husband Michael’s cancer treatment plan. A day earlier, they had spent several hours up at Stanford Hospital so Michael could have a bone needle biopsy. Leaving the house in the early morning darkness felt almost like the first leg of a vacation, she writes. But rather than loading the car with suitcases and heading to an airport to fly off to Italy or Spain, they were off to Palo Alto with a walker in the back of the car.
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
My husband has cancer; waiting to learn the treatment plan is like bracing for a storm
Two weeks before Christmas, Lookout columnist Claudia Sternbach learned her husband, Michael, has cancer. They spent the holiday waiting to learn the treatment plan, which doctors will tell them this week. “We cling to each other in disbelief,” she writes. “This was not the plan” for 2024.
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
On the lookout for our better angels for 2024
Lookout columnist Claudia Sternbach is looking for her “better angels” this holiday season. She is saddened by the Israel-Hamas conflict, the division on college campuses and across the country and the failed attempts at climate reform. She begs us as a species to do better. “We must look like ungrateful idiots to those dancing, winged creatures,” she writes.