I’ve been pinching myself all week (and not sleeping well) as my book, An Obesity of Grief: A Journey from Traumatic Loss to Undying Love, is now in production mode. Edits are complete, and now we’re deciding on a cover design. Help us decide by clicking on this link: Koehler Books Cover Poll. (I promise … Continue reading Cover Design Poll! (and an excerpt)
"With all the partisan bitching and divisive news cycles, reading memoir helps me feel like I'm part of something more significant."
This is the only audio I have of Bruce. A BIG thank you to the late Bob Jones, Jasper High School choir director and a dear friend of Bruce's, for sending this to Carlene in 2000. If you have any audio or video of Bruce that you can share, please let me know. You can … Continue reading Oklahoma! practice, 1977
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.
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
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
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.
I’m not the world’s most patient person, god knows, but I’m pretty happy with how I’m handling my impatience this week. My checkbook is probably not so happy - I’m a stress shopper - but mostly I’ve been buying Christmas and birthday gifts and cards, candles and dog treats, so at least it’s useful shopping. I … Continue reading Waiting
Turned 57 on August 14. As if 2020 hasn’t been weird enough, these last few weeks have been particularly weird. Maybe weird isn’t the right word. I’ll keep writing and see if a more appropriate word becomes apparent. It’s been a hodgepodge of things – both that I’ve made happen and naturally occurring – that … Continue reading This One Has No Title
Chelsea Handler has made me gasp in disbelief (“OMG, did she just SAY that out loud?”) and laugh until I cry. But never has anything she’s written or said made me cry cry, as in, real tears of sorrow. On Monday, Handler was on the NPR show Here and Now promoting her new book, Life … Continue reading Chelsea Handler Made Me…Cry?
Lynn Haraldson, Writer 