Divorce and death seem especially piercing on holidays. I don’t know why. Certainly global pandemics and worldwide quarantines don’t help matters. In fact, they do quite a bit of piercing themselves. It’s something to ponder while I sit here on this rainy morning, drinking my
Instead of LOL I now write SOL–it stands for Sob Out Loud and means sun in Spanish, so the duo meaning of sobbing out loud followed by a burst of sunshine is pretty perfect. Because, let’s face it, there’s a lot to sob about right now.
And now the baby is 16, the same age as Sleeping Beauty when she pricked her finger on that spinning wheel and fell asleep. But my girl is definitely not asleep. She’s awake, probably the most awake person I know. At 16 years old, the is full of love and kindness and a devotion to truth and justice that seems unshakeable. This girl can easily defeat fire-breathing dragons. So maybe all the wishes from the women/fairies at her baby shower worked that day.
The truth of the truths, the truth of my battered grieving soul, is that love just keeps growing. I loved my father so much and then I met Kim, and my heart burst into lights and a whole new love, a love I had never seen before and it felt like my heart got bigger, and then I became a mother, and my love grew even bigger. Boundless. Timeless. Eternal. I still feel it when I look at the sunlight on the sea, when I link arms with my son, when I hear my daughter yelling, “Mom! I need an emergency hug right away!”
And, now that I know the staggering pain that comes with losing the people you love so much, if I had to do it all over again, I wouldn’t change a damn thing. I wouldn’t trade one extraordinary moment.
When we made the wings all those years ago, Kim kept saying we were infusing them with our love. I think she was right. Because if there’s one real truth in this world, no matter where people go when they die, the love remains, and in the swamp of grief, I need to remember the wings.
Back in December, I received an email from my lawyer while my sister, Maria, was visiting me from Utah. Maria is my older sister, and she’s a very bossy, no-nonsense Virgo. She took my phone and read the email, then she texted our little sister.
My motto has always been: “Take care of the luxuries, the necessities will take care of themselves.” (Thank you Dorothy Parker, for writing this brilliant motto.) Whether this has served me well or not is a matter of opinion. I have yet to win any
Kim was a suncatcher. She literally was so full of light and the air around her twirled and radiated rainbow lights. She would have been 46 on February 8 this year, 2020. So when I was invited to a birthday party for our dear friend,
My favorite mythologist, Joseph Campbell, said near the end of every hero’s journey, we face a massive dragon guarding life’s greatest treasure—the truth of our soul. It’s a lesson I learn over and over, but it seems the dragon is bigger this time, with much
I was jumping on the bed last night in a spontaneous dance party to Soulmate by Lizzo, when I missed the bed and face-planted on my hardwood floor. Henry, my 13-year-old’s face appeared above me. “Mom? Are you okay?” “Of course! I know how to
When I was 16, and it was winter, my Dad would go out to the garage every single morning and start my car for me to warm it up before I got in it. Every single morning. I don’t remember getting into a cold car
Singing over the bones, grief and transformation…
