Aunt Lucile
Aunt Lucile, who died last spring just days before her 99th birthday, was a source of strength and comfort for …
Tag Archives: death of a child
Measuring time and distance and memories
This cool September morning I took an early morning walk, and for a minute I closed my eyes and thought …
String theory
Yesterday I wrote that I would try to continue to untangle my thoughts and share a red thread story. I’ve …
Hope and rocking chairs and threads
I have so many thoughts tangled in my head and heart today, but to untangle them a little, I am …
Invisible Speed Bumps
We are moving sometime in the next year. Moving away from the house we’ve called home for 20 years. The …
4, 3, 2, 1
In my memoir, Losing Malcolm: A Mother’s Journey Through Grief, I write about my reaction right after the doctor tells …
Stoplight encounter
The light was red. Usually I can zip right through, but this morning the red light caught me. The stop …
Farther along, we tell our stories (and leave our cards)
For a long time, some of us in the writing group of bereaved mothers did not find it easy to …
Peggy Saves the Louvre (and Jeune Fille)!
Not everyone in our writing group knows this story, so I am sharing it partly for our group. Every time …
The What Ifs
I’ve got the what ifs tonight, the night after Hank turned 16. And Jack didn’t. I don’t often let myself …
Bridges and baccalaureates
I love baccalaureates and graduations. I never thought I would say this—not I, the one who might once have chosen …
“High Functioning Bereaved Parents”
Here are some reflections from my late night/early morning reading: Jeremy Shaton wrote in a New York Times blog about …
Cicadas again
Brood 2 of the 17-year magicicadas are emerging this spring in my part of the world. I hear them singing …
Learning to breathe
I realized it today. I’m living again. I said it out loud. Those first ten years, (give or take a few), …
Beach Retreat
Beach Poem, Oct. 2005 Women walking Sitting talking Laughing crying over Living and dying Running sunning Having funning Daring dreaming …
A Pill for Everything
I’ve just written a column discussing some of the ideas in this piece–it will be published next week and I’ll …
Where am I going?
The following Haiku poems were written in response to a reading by Carol Henderson at a recent writing retreat. The …
IHOP and the Octopus
Thursday, March 28, 2002 found our family at IHOP in Charlotte to eat with our dear friends Jerel and Susan …
fulfilling a sacred contract
Howard Thurman, theologian and Harvard professor, said, “There are two questions that we have to ask ourselves. The first is, …
A place that no longer is
Prompt: Write about a place that no longer is April 22, 2007 I finally framed that little snapshot that had …
Farther Along 