2019 Sucked: My Thoughts on Loss, Grief, and Life After
“All the colors of the world pass through our bodies like strings of fire.” From Colors passing through us by Marge Piercy Sara brought so much color to my life – she was my rainbow mermaid! It took her a long… Read moreBrown Birkenstocks
Death doesn’t prevent me from loving you. I loved you from the moment I knewYou were growing within me…We celebrated when you transitionedfrom Embryo to Fetus. Every milestone, every eventWe celebrated with love.We talked to you,Talked about you,Planned for your… Read moreDissonance
I’m sorry that you’ve lost a child, or children. This is a club no one should ever have to belong to. It goes against the natural order of the universe; parents are not supposed to outlive their children. I speak… Read moreA Letter to Newly Bereaved Parents
I wish I had a filter for social media to hide all of the “Choose Happiness” type posts right now. You know what I’m talking about… the things that say there’s always people/things/events in life that don’t go the way… Read moreOn “Choosing” Happiness
Of course time is running out. It always has been the waves crashing against the shore, shifting thousands, maybe millions of grains of sand with each pulse of the tide, creating erosion and forcing change. It has been the inevitability… Read moreThe After
I don’t know how to feel about Mother’s Day this year. It was supposed to have been Sara’s first Mother’s Day with our son, George. Although I was pregnant on Mother’s Day (and Father’s Day) last year, we didn’t celebrate… Read moreA Different Kind of Mother’s Day
A recent writing prompt really did not resonate with me. It’s about the question “how could you leave like that?” – the experience of having that sort of question aimed at our dead loved one(s) as part of our grief,… Read moreAnother question
I’ve got a prompt sitting in my unused prompts folder that’s actually one I’d done before (and was sent out again), asking me to check in on the condition of my heart. Last time I wrote about my heart as… Read moreRevisiting the condition of my heart
Tragedy. Acceptance. Grief. Pain. Love. I know some people want to ask “Why?” when tragedy happens. I’m not talking about culpability for events surrounding the tragedy (if there is culpability to be found), but rather the bigger picture existential question…. Read moreBigger Questions
In the words of our friend, Joey Tribbiani, “It is a love based on giving and receiving as well as having and sharing. And the love that they give and have is shared and received. And through this having and… Read moreGiving and Receiving
Learning to love differently is hard. When George died, when Sara died, my love for them did not go away. Before, I knew how to express my love: talking to George as I was lying in bed in the eveninglaying… Read moreLearning to Love Differently
A word after a word after a word is power, according to Margaret Atwood. Is that really true? A word after a word after a word. Do the thousands of words that I have typed since Sara died give me… Read morea word after a word after a word
Sara and I loved playing games – card games, board games, deck-building games… they were one of the primary ways we spent time together at home. I can map our relationship through the games that we played. A month after… Read moreTracing our life together through games
I am my heart’s undertaker. It is a full time job. Before, I never really thought about how often a heart could break, about what work it was to tend to a heart that has been mangled. I watch Shifu… Read moreMy Heart’s Undertaker
Targeted advertising is one of the things that makes the internet go ’round. It’s one of the main reasons why site like Facebook are free. They’ve always been annoying and sometimes creepy, like when an ad pops up about something… Read moreThey are monetizing my grief
It’s been awhile since I’ve written. Life has just felt so heavy… between all the virus stuff and business around quarter end at work, I just didn’t have the energy in me to write, even though I do better when… Read more5 months and counting
Every day when I move about our house and interact with our things I can’t help but thank about all of the things we have that Sara and George were supposed to outlive: The white-out tape on the table downstairs…. Read moreAnger at Inanimate Objects
Touching foreheadsa hand on the shoulderbumping elbowsplaying footsiesmooshing together on the couch with a dog on either sidemassaging feet, shoulders, backlight tickling touchHUGS – quick hugs, full body hugs, hugs in bed, hugs sitting downholding handsembracing while dancingintimate toucha head… Read moreMissing her hugs
though sometimes it is necessaryto reteach a thing its loveliness from “St. Francis and the Sow” by Galway Kinnell The quote above reminds me so much of Sara. She was so, so lovely. She was also always so hard on… Read moreLoveliness
In our day to day lives, we often use common platitudes to muster up strength to get through challenging situations. Almost everyone I know does it at times… What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. God (or the universe) will… Read more“What Doesn’t Kill You…”