I want to start by saying that I'm a firm believer that not everything has to happen "for a reason." I think that cliché is incredibly insensitive to anyone who has gone through something as soul-crushingly awful as losing a ...
Grief is hard. And strange. And unpredictable. Just when I think I’ve figured this journey out, even just a little bit, it takes a turn and smacks me in the face with a new wave of emotion and reality. Always ...
Tomorrow would be my late husband’s 44th birthday. But instead he is forever 37. Our son and I miss Jared every day. Wish he could be here. Would love to once again celebrate his birthday with him. It’s ...
Writing doesn't come easy for me. I wish it did. I am envious of those people that can write down their thoughts in a flowing, coherent and reflective way without second-guessing or heavily editing. Maybe someday I’ll get there. When ...
A few months ago, March 23, 2021 to be exact, an international crisis happened that sent ripples throughout the world. A massive container ship, the Ever Given was stuck for over a week in the Suez Canal, one of the ...
I was at a four-day writers’ conference this past weekend. It was supposed to be on a lake in northern Michigan, but due to COVID, it was on Zoom. That’s a lot of screen time, but it was worth it. ...
. I stopped writing about my grief for a while. Some of the initial abandon with which I was willing to talk about my struggles faded and I was left with the sense that as time went on I ...
Sports was my husband’s thing. He coached our son’s baseball team. And our son's football team. The last spring he was alive he coached Steven’s baseball team. Even though he was diagnosed with a blood clot in his ...
When my husband passed suddenly at the age of 32, I was quite pregnant with our second child and was a stay at home mother to our then 18 month old. Despite being an intelligent and capable 31 year old ...
There is something surreal about going from one to two years, in terms of grief. Singular becomes plural so quickly, and you lose the ability to say "Oh, he died a year and a half ago," or "last year, I ...