I used to endeavor to live a balanced life. I used to think that if I controlled and managed everything in my life just right that I would be happy. If I could carve out the exact right number of hours for family, work, health, recreation, etc. that I would have the right formula for [...]
In the last two weeks I’ve had conversations in both our Dinner Party group and our Meetup group about grief at various stages. As I listened to others experiences of grief I was struck yet again by how taboo talking about it is in our daily life. These are some of the things I heard; [...]
I was asked the other day if I get tired of talking about grief. If I’d rather put down my grief and go do something fun. These are really good questions. There was a time that I wanted all of my feelings of grief to go away. I didn’t want to remember that my daughter [...]
Last week at the Raleigh Death Café a participant’s question about what constitutes a good death prompted much discussion. As I listened to the interesting conversation I flashed back almost 17 years to Leah’s hospital room. I remembered holding on to every thread of hope as we conferred with her doctors. I remembered Dan helping [...]
In the past month I have traveled to two book events, one in Boulder, CO, and one in Minneapolis, MN. I’ve begun to write about each of them several times, but it took awhile until I was ready. Even though the content of each event was similar, I received unique gifts from each of them. [...]
I had a dream about Leah last night. It’s been a while since that has happened. In the dream, I knew at some level that she was no longer with me in physical form, so it gave me great comfort to be with her in the dream. She was slightly older than when she left [...]
When the dust settled after my book launch party I wondered, “ Okay. What now? What do authors do once the editing, publishing, and launching are done?” The answer came soon enough; market the book. I began the process of writing to venues to request book events and speaking engagements, shifted my networking message, and [...]
My book launch party was last Sunday. I am now officially an author. You may think that my author status took effect when I held the first copy of my book in my hand, but it didn’t. For me it happened Sunday when I stood in front of family, friends, and interested people and shared a [...]
It’s that time of the year again. Time to reflect on the year that went before, and make intentions for the year spread out in front of us. For most of my life as the year waned, I would look back on the past year and berate myself for all the ways I perceived failure [...]
While visiting our son this month, I had another moment when the gift of being present revealed itself. In our work, the subject of death and dying is common. When we think of our own demise, it always seems like a lifetime removed from our daily concerns. I had one of those moments of clarity [...]
