As I write these words, I am marking the 18th anniversary of Leah’s death. The week that starts with her accident and ends with her death is always different each year. There is always a surreal quality to them. I decided to take this day to be with my thoughts, to write, to contemplate, to [...]
Grief travels a diverse and twisted road. It’s often a road that we could never have imagined. I remember thinking that I was grieving for my daughter, Leah, differently than I ever thought I would. You will encounter many facets or aspects of grief as you travel this road. The facets may also be seen as [...]
2017 was the year I claimed my voice. It was the year I began to tell my story at my book events. Each time I spoke my story I felt more and more like myself. It felt like I was breathing life into a part of myself that I was never quite sure would ever [...]
As this year winds to a close, I’d like to share with you what I’ve been reflecting on for the last few weeks. At this time last year I was preparing for my book to be published and starting to think about how I was going to market it. When I revisited my musings from [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
