How 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…

On 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…

According 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…

What you don’t want to know about parental grief — I’m pretty sure you don’t want honesty. You want to hear that I’m moving on, accepting her death in whatever context acceptance means for you. You don’t want to hear how hard this is. You don’t want to know about her ashes inside the handmade urn that sits on the…

This month, I am 2 years sober. I tried my first edible in late 2016, around the time my daughter was dying. People had been dropping by my house with gifts of food, wine, and other comforts for a few weeks and a friend brought me a batch of weed-infused…

What summer looks like from my almost-empty nest — Ten years ago my kids were eleven and eight and the shape of my summer was completely different. Back then, I was obsessed with keeping the girls busy while trying to get work done from my home office. It was chaos. It was hard. It was all about to come…

In the empty nest support group I found on Facebook, the parents are sad or they are angry or they are confused. But some are relieved. Some are content. Some are thrilled because they have the time and the means to travel or renovate or explore a new interest. Some…

It seems to me, looking in from the outside, that high school has been all about big achievements. It was four years of pushing you relentlessly forward, even in the midst of a global pandemic. There was barely time to celebrate any single success before the next school year, then…

I wonder what she sees now. I wonder what she’s trying to tell me? She’s not coming back. At first, I counted her death in days, then weeks, then months — now it’s been years. I marked each turn of the moon with small changes, tears, and disbelief that another…