Having spent the better part of two years writing a memoir about how I learned (and am still learning) to live with grief, I can say for certain that grief isn’t exclusively linked to death.
Grief Research
To Live Deeply, You Need to Be a Cardinal
"It’s safer to be a grackle, yes, but if I truly want to live in the fullness of all that life throws at me, I know I need to be a cardinal."
Farsighted
“Maybe surrounding yourself with grief, sadness, and bittersweet memories all day every day is taking a toll?”
Goodbye, Dad
I read the letters, but not the ramblings because, you know, I'd have plenty of time before our next Zoom call to do that. Then he up and died, just like that, on Monday night.
Headstone(d) (and looking for advice)
When I was nineteen and he was twenty four and we had a several-thousand-dollar hospital bill to pay because we’d just had a baby, he died. After paying thousands of dollars for an expensive casket because my mother-in-law didn’t want her son’s body eaten by bugs, ever (perfectly preserved forever, which isn’t how nature works), … Continue reading Headstone(d) (and looking for advice)
Life In (and on the brink of leaving) the Bubble
March 12, 2020: Jim had minor surgery. In the hospital waiting room, large bottles of hand sanitizer were placed on every table and everyone sat far apart from each other. It was clear we’d all heard of something called coronavirus, especially when I sneezed and the entire room got quiet. “It’s just allergies, I’m sure,” … Continue reading Life In (and on the brink of leaving) the Bubble
The Feeling that Will Never Have an Explanation
I’m writing this on February 28, 2021, and I hear a train a mile away as the crow flies. When the wind blows a certain way, its whistle is as loud as if that train was passing through the valley that is my backyard. On February 28, 1983, two weeks before my due date, the … Continue reading The Feeling that Will Never Have an Explanation
Why I Love Rebecca Pearson (“This Is Us” spoiler alert!)
I can melt a bowl of ice cream with all the tears I cry when I watch “This Is Us.” Sad tears, happy tears, a-thousand-other-emotions tears. "This Is Us" opens cages I locked up years ago; cages I didn’t think had keys anymore. Didn’t I move on from ______? Apparently not. Part of why I … Continue reading Why I Love Rebecca Pearson (“This Is Us” spoiler alert!)
Play Guitar (oh yeah…)
After I do what I can with insurance companies and phone companies and assisted living facilities and banks, I turn it all off, and for thirty minutes, I read music, not emails. For thirty minutes, I’m a guitar player.
Hip as a Mustang
Watching Dad drive the Mustang home, cigarette smoke flying out the window, he became a little more hip, a little more Rockford, a little more than just Dad.
