PinnedMember-onlyBirds Still Sing When It RainsWhat comes next when the ending isn’t happy? Everything I love about happy endings is represented in the following brief montage of “cheating death” moments from a few of my favorite movies. It’s about ET, whose heart light went out, but was (immediately) rekindled by the love of the boy…Mental Health7 min readMental Health7 min read
PinnedMember-onlyChasing The Moon In OctoberHow a 4th grade science project taught me to write about the moon. October 1, 2010 | 3:30 pm | Last Quarter Phase My daughter arrives home from school with a slim notebook covered with photos that represent the night — owls, a gibbous moon cut from white paper, a…Parenting10 min readParenting10 min read
Published inHuman Parts·PinnedMember-onlyA Letter From My Daughter on the 4th Anniversary of Her DeathOn having faith, and giving permission to let go — “How we shall laugh at the trouble of parting when we meet again.” — Henry Scott Holland Dear Mom, The light is different here. If you saw how this place shines, I think you’d stop worrying about me. The light connects the landscape to every part of itself. It moves…Parenting5 min readParenting5 min read
PinnedMember-onlyMy Child DiedAccording to the American Cancer Society, about 600 adolescents, aged 15 to 19, die from cancer each year. In 2017, my daughter, Ana, was one of them. Ana was sick for four and a half years. During most of that time, even as her cancer progressed, I didn’t think that…Life Lessons6 min readLife Lessons6 min read
3 days agoMember-onlyThe Hidden Pain Behind My Messy YardWhen my daughter died, I stopped trying to tame the yard and hoped, for a time, that it would swallow me whole. — When we moved into this house 22 years ago, the yard was in pristine condition. The former owner, Marie, lived here for 35 years. The older couple (now long gone) who lived next door told us that Marie spent most of her time outside working on the yard. The house…Grief8 min readGrief8 min read
Published inHuman Parts·May 28Member-onlyWe Are Not Our ThingsWhen my daughter died, I clung tightly to her things. After my neighbor’s foreclosure, I began to let go of them. Four years ago, my former neighbor (I’ll call him “Dave”) lost his house. On the day it happened, a deputy showed up at the house and stood on the…Parenting6 min readParenting6 min read
May 16Member-onlyToday is My Daughter’s Should-Be 22nd BirthdayI want to feed Ana’s 15-year-old face into the magical AI image generator and demand that it show me what she would look like now. — Yesterday I turned to my husband and asked if he thought there was an AI tool that could age someone in a photograph. He’d started answering before thinking about why a question like that had occurred to me. “You probably have to pay for a tool like that,” Jim began…Grief6 min readGrief6 min read
Published inHuman Parts·May 1Member-onlyI’m Drowning In Mother’s Day MemoriesFor bereaved parents, Mother’s Day can be a perilous landscape of painful memories and heartache. Eight years ago, my husband took my daughters, then 11 and 14, to pick out Mother’s Day gifts for me. They came home with two tiny trees, a Cherokee Brave Dogwood and a Star Magnolia…Parenting6 min readParenting6 min read
Published inHuman Parts·Apr 23Member-onlyWhat If You Had Died At 15?The lie is that a life is ever finished. — “I don’t know what I would’ve done if you had died at 15,” my childhood best friend said to me shortly after my daughter died. I’d been telling her about Ana’s best friends who had dropped by our house to spend time in Ana’s empty room. They did that a…Grief6 min readGrief6 min read
Apr 8Member-onlyThe Poetry of GriefPoetry distills. It isolates. It captures. When you’re grieving, it shines a light on a very specific type of pain. “To me, that’s the gift of poetry — it shapes an endless conversation about the most important things in life.” — Caroline Kennedy I used to be an avid reader…Poetry6 min readPoetry6 min read