I responded to a friend’s post on Facebook with a casual reference to Ben’s cremation. (Complaint about funeral homes) An hour later it hit me how casually I can refer to my child’s cremation. As if it is just another event in life. As if the very thought of it doesn’t suck all the air […]

Scrolling through photos on my phone… I’ve taken a colorful array the last two years. Beautiful pictures. Scrolling through them fast, it looks like a full and happy life. I am pleased. But as I slow down and look at them, the expected stirring of emotions doesn’t happen.  The photos look like a fun time. […]

The Holidays are here. Painful time. And I have shingles. Painful stuff. I feel tired and miserable, my sciatic nerve burns. But I told the doctor it was a three on the 1-10 scale. Most people report shingles as a 10. But I think I already live at a steady six every day. Maybe a […]

I had leg cramps today. So I started hunting my bottle of magnesium. Couldn’t find it anywhere, so finally thought about my overnight bag tucked away in the back of the closet. Maybe there… My overnight bag was sitting on a shelf at the back of the closet. Beside it was a red bucket. Curling […]

Random thoughts about grief and positivity. I’ve written about toxic positivity before: how the American culture doesn’t embrace “feeling your feels.” We urge the “Pull yourself up by your bootstraps” model. Keep on the sunny side. Look on the bright side. Or as my mother used to say when I’d complain about something, “at least […]

Attended a meeting of the “onlies” tonight. We have two newer members who lost their son (and only child) to hazing. It was his first year at college. I see the pain and panic in their faces. Their loss is very fresh. Talking with them helped me see my improvement over the last 18 months. […]

Food… I started pondering food after having a discussion with my sisters sitting on a picnic bench at Navigator restaurant. We met to discuss good things. Daddy has decided to split off ten acre plots for each of us on the ranch, so we got together to discuss what it might mean and what we […]

We’re all the same when we hear our child is gone. Broken people. We can never go back to who we were in those moments before. We lose our child but in some ways worse, we lose ourselves. The moment my world ended revisits me frequently, even now, seventeen months later. Maybe I’m washing dishes, […]

It’s hard to live when Half of you is here And half of you is gone.

My DNA screams for him and doesn’t understand why he doesn’t answer. I hate him for dying.