FOREWORD In 2016 or so I became a beekeeper. I knew almost nothing about keeping bees, so I relied on the cumulative knowledge of my wife, who'd kept bees several decades ago, in her twenties. We bought a new type of hive, called a Flow Hive^(TM). It was a revolutionary design which vastly simplified the gathering of honey, reduced the amount of equipment needed, and made it possible to tend to many beekeeping tasks without ever disturbing the bees, without their noticing our presence. But, we were not legal. The town where we live has city regulations that prohibit the keeping of livestock in city limits. And, yes, bees are considered livestock; but chickens are not. Please, don't ask me why.

We talked to our city councilman, a neighbor, who advised us to be quiet, be sure our neighbors were ok with it, and don't tell him anything further wink wink>. So, we have been stealth beekeepers of one hive, under the radar, for several years. We did consult with our neighbors, almost all of whom are avid gardeners and they were thrilled. And even more thrilled when we shared the riches of their robustly flourishing gardens, and they received our fresh and pure honey.

Thus began my many years of fascination-borderline obsession-with bees, and my deep affection for them. We joined the local beekeepers' guild, made some friends, and garnered a great deal of advice-some of it confusing, even conflicting. And as we embarked on parenting our first colony, I read everything and watched every YouTube video I could get my hands on. Soon I began to realize the more I learned about bees, the more there was to learn.

Bees are complex creatures. Social creatures. Efficient creatures. They communicate in many ways, some of which we know, and many of which we do not understand. Most of all, I realized we are co-inhabitants of this physical space. We all do well if we take care of each other, bees and humans alike.

I sometimes sit for an hour or more beside our hive, watching the girls come and go, industrious and dedicated. At these times, I begin to feel peace. I feel part of them and part of something larger than myself. These are times, unequivocally, of meditation.

This short collection is my tip of the hat to my bees, and all bees. A gesture of gratitude. And a plea for their help as we navigate a physically and spiritually collapsing planet. There is a lot to be learned from bees. Greg Stidham

An introspective look at how the experiences of an intensive care unit physician helped shape his optimistic worldview during a thirty-two-year medical career.

In Blessings and Sudden Intimacies: Musings of a Pediatric Intensivist, Dr. Greg Stidham entertains, inspires, and expresses gratitude for the experiences that have enriched his life. Not only does he reveal many of the extraordinary things he's experienced, but he also opens a way for us to view our own lives as a series of blessings.

Encounters with critically ill and dying children and their parents, present the poignant sudden intimacies of the book. The blessings refer to the young patients, families and healthcare personnel who touched him. Throughout, he tells of trying to ease, understand and make sense of the suffering of his young patients and their families. But he also balances the serious narrative with funny stories, letting us in on the sort of silly humor that helps a medical staff get through its day.

The book doesn't just cover Dr. Stidham's professional life. Now retired, he intertwines stories from his personal life, too, looking at how experiences at home and work have shaped and influenced each other, and him. He covers topics such as friendships, marriage, birth of children and grandchildren, relocations, health issues, vacations, and travel.

Through it all, the Cleveland native and Kingston, Ontario, resident maintains an optimistic mindset that gave him the empathy and strength needed to sustain a long medical career, most of which was spent at the University of Tennessee Health Sciences Center and LeBonheur Children's Medical Center in Memphis.

An accomplished writer, Stidham has published a memoir, numerous pieces of short fiction, and creative nonfiction. But his real passion is writing poetry.

Blessings and Sudden Intimacies presents a series of experiences that take readers on a ride along with Dr. Stidham as he comforts, cares, grieves, and comes to understand how one can find blessings in some of life's most difficult times. The stories are told in direct, clear language that brings his patients and their struggles to life in vivid fashion, which helps us find meaning, as he has, in the smallest, most fleeting encounter.

This fourth collection by physician and poet, Greg Stidham, is a broad and wide-reaching collection. It comprises eighty-eight poems, organized into eight sections, each titled with descriptions that give the reader some idea of what to expect. The general topics range from nature, to sociopolitical issues, to personal reflections on grief and grief counseling. Other poems speak to the poet's reflections on his own personal ailments that accompany aging, along with the inevitable intimations of mortality. There are also poignant poems speaking to his love for some of the many rescue dogs he has adopted over the years.

This short collection of poems, written by a retired pediatric ICU physician, are inspired by his encounters with patients, both those who survived and those who did not. Other inspirations were sharing in the terror of the parents at the moments of crisis, and in the unimaginable pain if the fight was not successful. There are also several poems that reflect on the poet's reactions to his own health concerns. He practiced in this ICU environment for 32 years, followed by seven years in retirement as a volunteer bereavement counselor for Bereaved Families of Ontario, working primarily with parents who have lost a child. The poems transcend the specifics of the encounters and moments they describe, and they have a broader and more universal appeal.

This short collection of poems, written by a retired pediatric ICU physician, are inspired by his encounters with patients, both those who survived and those who did not. Other inspirations were sharing in the terror of the parents at the moments of crisis, and in the unimaginable pain if the fight was not successful. There are also several poems that reflect on the poet's reactions to his own health concerns. He practiced in this ICU environment for 32 years, followed by seven years in retirement as a volunteer bereavement counselor for Bereaved Families of Ontario, working primarily with parents who have lost a child. The poems transcend the specifics of the encounters and moments they describe, and they have a broader and more universal appeal.

Dear Friends is a collection of diverse short stories, set in different locations with an array of interesting characters. Despite the diversity, author and retired pediatric intensivist Greg Stidham ties these stories together with a common thread. They all involve well-developed characters, most of whom are not perfect, but who persist in striving to be better. In the process, they discover through mostly chance encounters the redemption possible by even short-lived (or sometimes longer) relationships.

For example:

- A middle-aged man with a slowly progressive neurologic disorder embarks on a long, overland bus ride to a small town in North Dakota. On the way, he befriends a quirky, young woman with problems of her own.

- A young mother loses her young toddler son in a tragic drowning incident and struggles to recover. She undergoes grief therapy, but mostly begins to heal by persistently pursuing her own way.

- A young, intellectually challenged man volunteers to collect donations for the Salvation Army at Christmas time. While he jingles his belt of bells, he also astutely observes the customers entering and leaving the liquor store before which he sits.

- An older man is awakened by bizarre sensations he does not understand, only to discover that when he awakens in a hospital, he has had a seizure. While hospitalized, he meets a kindly Irish Catholic priest, which leads to an improbable bond.

- A teenaged boy is suddenly orphaned and goes to live with relatives in a small, Colorado mountain town. There, he begins a job helping to care for a man who is dying from cancer. The two develop a quietly growing relationship, and the boy discovers that the man is a well-known poet.

These stories are poignant, provocative, sometimes humorous. But they all address, directly or obliquely, the magic that can happen when two people, even strangers, connect on a deeper level than is usually the case.

An accomplished writer, Dr. Stidham has published a memoir, numerous pieces of short fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry. His books include the memoir, Blessings and Sudden Intimacies: Musings of a Pediatric Intensivist (PathBinder Publishing 2021), and a poetry chapbook, Doctoring in Nicaragua (Finishing Line Press 2021).

Dear Friends is a collection of diverse short stories, set in different locations with an array of interesting characters. Despite the diversity, author and retired pediatric intensivist Greg Stidham ties these stories together with a common thread. They all involve well-developed characters, most of whom are not perfect, but who persist in striving to be better. In the process, they discover through mostly chance encounters the redemption possible by even short-lived (or sometimes longer) relationships.

For example:

- A middle-aged man with a slowly progressive neurologic disorder embarks on a long, overland bus ride to a small town in North Dakota. On the way, he befriends a quirky, young woman with problems of her own.

- A young mother loses her young toddler son in a tragic drowning incident and struggles to recover. She undergoes grief therapy, but mostly begins to heal by persistently pursuing her own way.

- A young, intellectually challenged man volunteers to collect donations for the Salvation Army at Christmas time. While he jingles his belt of bells, he also astutely observes the customers entering and leaving the liquor store before which he sits.

- An older man is awakened by bizarre sensations he does not understand, only to discover that when he awakens in a hospital, he has had a seizure. While hospitalized, he meets a kindly Irish Catholic priest, which leads to an improbable bond.

- A teenaged boy is suddenly orphaned and goes to live with relatives in a small, Colorado mountain town. There, he begins a job helping to care for a man who is dying from cancer. The two develop a quietly growing relationship, and the boy discovers that the man is a well-known poet.

These stories are poignant, provocative, sometimes humorous. But they all address, directly or obliquely, the magic that can happen when two people, even strangers, connect on a deeper level than is usually the case.

An accomplished writer, Dr. Stidham has published a memoir, numerous pieces of short fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry. His books include the memoir, Blessings and Sudden Intimacies: Musings of a Pediatric Intensivist (PathBinder Publishing 2021), and a poetry chapbook, Doctoring in Nicaragua (Finishing Line Press 2021).

Iced tea, like poetry, looks deceptively easy to make. The ingredients are simple, but there is a fine balance between bitterness and sweetness. And that simplicity and balance takes time, patience, and care. The same holds true for Greg Stidham's refreshing, full-bodied poetic debut. Like the poet Ted Kooser, Stidham's poems are straightforward and direct, praising common objects, and ordinary experiences. Here is a poet who trusts and celebrates the world, with all of its surprises and predictability, its sorrow, its joy. The clarity and precision of his remarkable poems help reveal, and deepen, the mysteries of the everyday. Jason Heroux, third poet laureate of Kingston, Ontario; author of 'Survivors of the Hive.'

Some poets convey great warmth and tenderness in their poems, while others present a steely, hard-bitten assessment of the world, but it is rare to find both these qualities in one voice, as readers encounter in the poetry of Greg Stidham. Iced Tea Poetry offers images distilled and crafted in the forge of lived experience, from a life spent doctoring critically ill children, and the same life enriched by embracing even the smallest moments of joy with gratitude and recognition. As in the work of his direct predecessors, Ted Kooser and Wendell Berry, Stidham takes in the landscapes and people around him with care but without sentimentality, as in the unforgettable Crossing the Plains, where a family's long ago loss of child is remembered against the backdrop of an image, And ahead, the vast goldness of wheat/ radiates endlessly toward the sun/ poised on the horizon's lip. Late in his career, our most eminent literary critic Harold Bloom asked an enduring question: Where shall wisdom be found? I feel certain in responding that one place where wisdom still can be found is in the poetry of Greg Stidham. - Jesse Graves, Professor and Poet-in-Residence at East Tennessee State University, author of 'Merciful Days and Said-Songs: Essays on Poetry and Place'.