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.
Aging in Santa Cruz
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.
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
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.
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
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
My husband is retiring: What will it do to our marriage when he realizes I eat cookies for breakfast?
Lookout columnist Claudia Sternbach is undergoing a life change: Her husband is retiring after 40 years at a tractor dealership. She works from home and is uncertain what it will mean to share the space all day. “First thing on my worry list is that he will judge me,” she writes. He’ll also find out she sometimes sleeps until 10 a.m. and eats Tate’s chocolate chip cookies for breakfast.
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
Anderson Cooper is helping me understand grief — and podcasting
Lookout columnist Claudia Sternbach has fallen for Anderson Cooper. His podcast, anyway. On it, he unpacks his grief at the death of his famous mother, the heiress and fashion trendsetter Gloria Vanderbilt, and the suicide of his brother, Carter. Like most people in their 70s, Sternbach has lost loved ones and has become accustomed to carrying her grief with her. “The older we get, the more we lose,” she writes in this latest column on aging. “And yet, as we continue on, we are expected to carry more. More memories, more grief, more tools to deal with said grief. We fill up a virtual backpack with it all and just keep walking as the load gets heavier.”
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
Need an escape from bad news and politics? Try fiddlin’ in the forest
Lookout columnist Claudia Sternbach is amazed at her friend Nora, who at 68 took up fiddling in 2019 and recently performed in the Valley of the Moon Fiddle Extravaganza at DeLaveaga Park. Sternbach attended and was mesmerized by the range of emotions the music brought. “I had gone from foot tapping and clapping to sobbing silently, a lump in my throat the size of a boulder,” she writes. “I thought of the people I miss. The people I loved.” She also got a brief respite from the woes of the world. “Who knew that such a small instrument could provide such an abundance of joy?”
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
The secret to aging in Santa Cruz: Wear that tiny bikini on the inside
Lookout columnist Claudia Sternbach is sometimes surprised at the gray wave sweeping Santa Cruz. On her regular beach walks, she sees “more and more older folks out catching some rays.” Census data confirms the trend; the county’s 65-84 age bracket grew by 81% between 2010 and 2020. Sternbach, in her 70s, shares her thoughts as she grapples with her own age-related ailments and “being transported to this other existence.”