Finals and life happened. So as we all do, grief was placed on the back burner. Milestones have been flying by accompanied by two kids who miss their Nana dearly. Now that the pace is somewhat manageable. Here’s a couple of surprises that grief taught me about me. 1. There is healing in hearing your […]
Today is another moment marker. One year ago today, Addie was baptized. It’s during joy-filled days that I am reminded that grief will always be our neighbor. It comes and goes, sometimes close by and sometimes so silent I forget it’s there. Aside from the obvious excited this anniversary brings, there is also a thread […]
I had to slow my grief journey down to leave room to process. When I don’t allow grief the space to move around in me, I also keep it from moving OUT of me. During this time, a question came up… How do we KNOW if we have truly grieved our loved one versus avoided […]
There was an adjustment period back into ‘normal life’. Even though I expected some of these things to occur, I did not expect how hard they would be to get through. Here is how grief surprised me. Lack of motivation. When I returned home and the dust of our 30 day pace began to settle, […]
5 States, 8 Cities, 3 Flights When the pace is high, it’s important to soak in every moment, because there are some seasons you won’t get a redo. From the streets of my childhood, family kitchens of New Jersey, firsts in New York, officially launching a new path in Oklahoma, Karaoke in Louisiana, and eventually […]
The work of cleaning and clearing an apartment full of my mom’s lifelong treasures was done in a matter of days. I paused when I needed to and allow grief to do its thing every time I encountered it. I had a lot of heavy emotions but I had peace. When I climbed in to […]
Good-bye mail box. Good-bye loft. Good-bye island. Good-bye Timpson. Good-bye home. Good-bye memories, everywhere. I had sat many evenings around the island to my left. Sometimes with friends into the wee hours of the night, other times with my mom and dad. Behind me was where we took our last family photo we took in […]
This was after the service. For the most part, everything was a blur. I did not expect it to be anything else. Everything you see we picked throughout our journey towards this day. Everything meant something… From what I remember, close to 80 people gathered to celebrate my mom. We all told stories that would […]
The night of October 10th, I had a group of friends that had cleaned mom’s apartment all day. They had gone through each piece of mail with care, packed tons of photographic proof of our amazing adolescence in boxes, and stopped to let me smoke a cigarette… which I totally forgot how to do. I […]
The wait was over, the work in front of us. After the great day with Kayce, I was driving in my mom’s car to where she worked. I loved being with dear friends. I also loved being alone. My mom bought ‘Red Gypsy’ within the year. She loved this car. As I climbed into it… […]
It All Counts 