Ever since we knew we would be grandparents, our friends asked us what our grandparent name would be. That’s something I never really contemplated for myself. If I were to be lucky enough to be a grandma, that name would be the best possible name my grandchild could call me. Nonetheless, we played with [...]
What happens when your life is going along in a fine fashion, the way you envisioned your life going, no, the way you intentionally created it to be, and then something changes to seemingly spin you off the rails? “Life is what happens while you’re busy making other plans” This John Lennon lyric has [...]
Nothing can knock the wind out of our sails like the approach of a holiday or a milestone day. Even after over 21 years my daughter’s birthday can bring tears. Mother’s Day is bittersweet. The year-end holidays can bring sadness. All of these occasions also bring immense joy and celebration too. I didn’t come to [...]
One of the gifts of my grief journey was realizing that grief is a lifelong journey. That idea may have been peripheral before Leah died, yet as I navigated the months and years after she left us, I became much more aware of how grief affects our everyday lives. Before Leah died, I had experienced [...]
Blessings and Grace became the mantra of my grief journey. I found that each time I was able to meet my feelings of grief in my heart I would receive blessings and grace, each and every single time. When this first happened, I was perplexed. I didn’t think that I deserved to receive blessing and [...]
All my life I had been fearful of endings. Endings meant I would have to change the way I did things. Endings were uncomfortable. I did everything I could to hold on to things for as long as I could. And then Leah died, and I experienced an ending that I couldn’t undo. It was [...]
Rereading this chapter was interesting. It took me right back into the feelings that I had as I was beginning to find my voice in the middle of my grief journey. For years before Leah died, I had been working thorough childhood wounds. Leah’s death created a sense of urgency that I hadn’t felt before. [...]
If you are like me, the thought of renovating a house brings excitement. Renovations mean newness, new paint colors, new furniture, and perhaps new room configurations. Have you ever considered that in order to renovate, we first have to deconstruct the space? Demolition and deconstruction are messy. It is during this time that we may [...]
This was a hard chapter to read, and as I recall it was a hard one to write. It tells the story of my relationship with Leah and some of the struggles we had as she was growing up. I remember when I was writing it that I wanted to be true to the [...]
Recently we took a family vacation with our son and his family. We went to northern MN, to the boundary waters. The lake we were at was at the Canadian border. As a matter of fact, the border was in the middle of the lake. Here are some photos of our trip. I think they [...]
