grief
February 1, 2009
- All living things, that is to say all loving things become attached to one another. This is a natural state of being alive.As I mourn Maurice I notice how the rest of the family mourns.Dave is seventeen months. He doesn't mourn he is not attached. There's something to be said for innocence.Debi is four and she mostly understands and slowly grows toward acceptance. She hasn't really cried, yet she ...
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January 24, 2009
- (A.K.A. the World's Saddest Meme.) The ever-awesome Gina Hyams not only tagged me for this "random things" meme, but suggested this variation specifically for me.It's been over three weeks since my husband died. I watched him die. I kissed him goodbye. I buried him. And I still don't believe it.I really did not know that there was this much love in the world. It's like bouncing on a ...
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January 23, 2009
- I really did come downstairs to my computer to blog Wednesday night. But first I checked the emails, and there was a paragraph I wrote to a speakers’ newsletter that had been picked up by another writer. (The speakers’ newsletter is free, but we are supposed to “pay” for it with a tip occasionally, and I had sent my first tip to the newsletter.) Excited that someone had liked it, ...
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January 23, 2009
- Just a few weeks after I submitted my latest essay, "The Crab in the Stars," to the journal Brevity, and a few weeks before I received the editor's response accepting it for inclusion in Issue 29, my grandmother died. Though not entirely unexpected, the timing of her passing seemed uncanny to me, because the essay was about the death of my grandfather (her husband) when I was twelve, ...
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January 18, 2009
- The Pain of a Child Luke 10 21; “I offer you praise, O Father, Lord of Heaven and earth, because what you have hidden from the learned and the clever you have revealed to the merest children.” In the year 1977, I was given a book to help me through my grieving. It was a gift from one of my dear sisters: My Daily Bread by Anthony J. Paone, S.J. When I first read it, I ...
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January 6, 2009
- Thank you for all your notes and calls, my friends.Each time I receive an email or Facebook wall posting, my iPhone dings and I check. I cannot write back right now, but each message is an infusion of love and support. You are keeping me going. New grief is an odd thing, I'm learning. Sometimes I have an hour or so where its vise grip relents and I feel almost normal. It's the middle of the ...
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December 21, 2008
- When my daughter Pam was 17, she had a group of incandescent friends – Julie, Catherine, Kim, Martha, Polly and others – who lit the spaces of our lives. They went on to college, jobs, marriages and adventures, lost track of each other at times and got back together at high school reunions. They encountered heartaches and obstacles, found success and contentment and joy. A few weeks ago, ...
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December 16, 2008
- Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if their be any virtue, and if their be any praise, think on these things (Philippians 4:8). On one particular day at work, I was getting ready for my next client as she sat in my ...
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December 10, 2008
- Last night, as is my custom on Friday evenings, I tried to stay awake to be able to spend an hour with my old friend, Bill Moyers. Bill Moyers' Journal, airs on KQED, San Francisco, at 10:00PM on Friday nights, normally a time I find myself already in bed-especially on days like yesterday when I had laid white Sri Lankan ceramic tiles on the walls of a ...
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December 1, 2008
- A snippet from my upcoming book “Imprinted Wisdom” Mommy, Can We Go To Heaven? I didn’t want my daughter to go to the funeral. I wanted to protect her and shelter her from seeing or knowing anything about death, because I couldn’t understand anything about it myself. I couldn’t bring myself to tell her that her daddy died, as death sounded cold and final and more like a nightmare ...
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