Confusion and Grief

I didn’t know her well.  But when I heard that an acquaintance of mine had a heart attack a few weeks ago, I was still stunned.  A peer, someone I’d volunteered with at the kids’ school, who’d attended our PTO meetings, who lived around the corner from me,  was Just Like Me had had a [...]

Passage

I tried to write out every little thing I could remember about my great aunt last Saturday.  I think because it was the right thing to do, to ponder and think and remember all of the things that I hadn’t thought of in so long.  But more, I think, because I felt lost in what [...]

Rest in peace, Aunt Katie.  She passed away last night.  

Death and Dying

My great aunt is sick. Well, it’s more than that, I suppose.  My great aunt is more than sick. My great aunt is dying.  Right now. My great aunt Katie is my mother’s aunt, her favorite aunt, and we were very close to her when my mother was alive.  Most of my happiest childhood memories [...]

Dear Pat

Dear Pat, I was very sorry to hear of your mother’s passing.  It is such a profound thing, to lose your mother.  It doesn’t matter whether you’re twenty or sixty; it is always hard, always difficult and especially so when you share your home and your lives with each other.  I hope that you are [...]

Bitter

I couldn’t stop. It didn’t matter that my son had called me last night and told me that he’d finally heard from his biological aunt about the funeral.  She had thanked him for his concern, told him of the nice service in the only town his great grandmother had ever known.  She had told him [...]

Instant Message of Pain

I sat in front of the television, laptop balanced on my lap two days later.  It was ten or so, the little ones in bed, my husband in Michigan.  He worked there now, about eight days a month, him having been given the job after all but it being determined that it wasn’t a big [...]

Foreign Family Members

“Well,” Z said through the phone lines, “I think she is going to ask me if I want to come to the funeral.” I pondered that news for a moment, the bitterness swirling in my mouth as I swallowed.  I tried to picture my son going to the funeral of his biological great grandmother that [...]

The 20 Year Old Wound

These days I call him “my eldest”.  It’s innocuous enough to not belie his non traditional way into the world, my nearly 22 year old son.  It still stings every time I hear the phrase, “Wow, you look young for your age” (insinuating that of course I must be older than I appear because otherwise [...]

Life Without Tom

“Can I come over?” I asked my girlfriend Fran, staring blankly at the message on my computer screen. It was three months after Tom had started treatment.  We’d seen him three times, the last time just two weeks ago.  He’d seemed better, less dependent on his oxygen machine and able to actually greet us at [...]