No More Waiting

I spent this morning looking for therapists.  Well, doing work on a freelance web design job that came up quickly and needs to be done quickly, and looking for therapists. It kind of feels good to be honest about it, frankly.  I think I spend a lot of time projecting to the world what I [...]

The Hardest Thing

On Easter Sunday, my husband and I took our children to Mass, as we do every Sunday.  I wasn’t born Catholic, and I haven’t always been a regular churchgoer even after I became one.  But we love our church here, mostly thanks to the wonderful priests who run the place.   I originally became a Catholic [...]

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 [...]

The Quiet

It’s quiet. It’s just the same as it used to always be here in our house….two kids amusing themselves, windows open on an unseasonably warm fall day, homework done, husband at work.  Relaxing.  Peaceful.  Blissfully quiet. Except that now all of that quiet seems disconcerting.  Too quiet. It’s because my eldest, Zachary, is gone. Zachary [...]

Two Steps Forward, Three Steps Back

“You need to come to the school and pick him up,” said the voice of my son’s special education teacher on the phone. We’d been riding a positive wave of good news as far as Michael had been concerned.  His last conference had brought me to tears; he was working on grade level, in the [...]

After the Hurricane

We made it through the hurricane, though it was an interesting time for us.  The winds started around midnight and by three in the morning, they were howling and rain was falling in sheets and sideways from the sky.  I finally got out of the bed at five thirty, tired of listening to it and [...]

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 [...]

Happy Birthday

I sat in the front seat, blindfolded, a gaggle of giggles surrounding me in the SUV. “Where are you guys taking me?” I laughed, trying to go along with the good natured fun my three girlfriends clearly had meticulously planned. It was my 40th birthday.  I had wondered how the evening would play out, with [...]