Life after loss with autism, preemies and a rainbow baby
Nearly every time I took my kids out in public when they were little a sentimental senior would remind me to enjoy them or tell me how quickly they would grow– how precious these days were. Sometimes they would offer their well-meaning advice when the kids were holding hands and happy and no one had […]
Years ago I stuck a photo to the side of our fridge of Mark and I at our wedding shower. I loved the reminder of our early days until I didn’t anymore. Hollowed out by grief I would stare at that photo and wonder who that girl was smiling effortlessly at the camera. Eventually I […]
I would like to say that losing a child turned me into an indestructible momma who will fear nothing because she’s already been through the worst. But I can’t. Losing my daughter turned me into a feather. What was once a smallish issue with anxiety snowballed into a big lump of fear that I carry […]
His last show ended a few hours ago and Parker is already hanging clouds in our basement. While most of the cast waited for pizza and stalked the dessert table, Parker circled the stage as set pieces were taken down. A few minutes later he came out for food, a gigantic cloud tucked under one […]
The weather is changing and conversations head in that direction as they always do. From porch to sidewalk, neighbors shout about the need for jackets or lack of. Somewhere, in line for coffee, two old friends discuss the 20 degree temperature difference from last week. And I promise, right this moment, a group of parents […]
If you’ve suffered a life-changing tragedy you have a date, maybe two or three where the world was supposed to stop but it didn’t. Where you were looking out your car window or down the 8th floor waiting room hallway and wondering how these people were functioning as if this were any other day. How […]
Years ago when I saw a therapist regularly she often reminded me that I needed to feel my way through all the feelings of losing a child. She said if I pushed away the grief or tried to stifle the urge to cry I would never get through those miserable days of searing pain. They would keep returning– […]
There is an unexplainable hollowness that comes with losing a child. I’ve heard loss moms explain it as a hole in their heart or an empty feeling. I’ve searched for words to do it justice but haven’t found one yet. You grow a child and birth them and before you see how their hair touches their shoulders […]
Eight years, three months and 27 days ago our NICU doctor and his assistant gave us a report on the babies. It was a jumble of foreign terms mingled with Baby A, B and C ending with information I still don’t fully remember. What I remember is what came next, a few minutes in time I […]
I had to dig through boxes in our crawl space to find our gravy dish because this is how I do things. The kids were “helping” me make Thanksgiving dinner, covering the table with all the tacky everything I try to hide behind the dishes that match. As they uncovered penguin salt and pepper shakers […]
