Solo parenting can be rough. In our marriage, I was always the primary parent. Jeff worked a lot, and I was mostly a stay-at-home parent over the years. So, I am used to parenting falling mostly on my shoulders, but ...
In a previous season of This is Us, a powerful show about the long-term, winding, intertwined storylines of an American family, Rebecca Pearson, the perennial widowed matriarch is helping deliver her first grandchild on the floor of her son’s home. ...
Our son has his first day of preschool next week, and hes excited, but I’m a little nervous. I’m nervous about my kid being the one with a dead dad. That’s not how we feel about him, as hes very ...
This week my baby girl started kindergarten. Such a big milestone. She’s been waiting for so long to get on that bus and be at school with the big kids. Three years to be exact. Since watching her brother step ...
Another family vacation has come and gone. This was our 5th. one without Bryan and it was still hard. Not as hard as the previous ones, but hard nonetheless. I am learning that time does help and heal, but for ...
“Melissa, you’re brilliant!” I thought to myself. I had this great idea to spend our first holiday after Dave’s death in Disneyland. What a perfect distraction, right? I walked downstairs where the boys were playing video games - they were ...
I’m going to share something that every widowed parent knows. Solo parenting sucks. Being the only one twenty-four hours a day seven days a week without an end in sight. And yes, I have amazing friends who would do anything ...
I recently wrote about how I was starting to believe I may be a strong solo mom. Then the COVID-19 pandemic happened. Now that we are into week two of this new reality of social distancing, working from home and ...
When I gained the unwanted title of widow, I also gained the unwanted title of single mom. Correct that—solo parent. And I say I’m a solo parent because even 20 months after Seth passed away, I still don’t feel like ...
Well, I’ve done it. Made it through a full calendar year without my dear husband here by my side. I remember on New Year’s Eve last year, as 2019 arrived, I was filled with such dread and sorrow. It was ...