February 5 makes one year that mom died. Like those early weeks, when I could simultaneously and acutely feel both her presence and her absence, that day feels both so…
This year I will not celebrate the holidays as much as I will *cope* with them. As if the transformation over the last several years of the holiday season becoming…
It’s a week since we returned from our two weeks in southern Italy. I feel revitalized, refreshed.The trip was a little bittersweet—an anniversary celebration delayed from May 2012, when we…
I used to give my mom grief for being a bit of a pack rat. Partially it was her upbringing…living in near poverty taught her to scrape together everything. If…
There is an article in today’s The Wall Street Journal (subscription required, I think) that discusses the “identity crisis process” after loss. The article focuses on divorce or a job loss.…
When I think of the kind of wine country retreat I would like, I do not immediately revert to the faux-Tuscan villa. There are many garish examples of that up…
It’s a fallacy, this notion of “closure.” You often hear about it, particularly on television news…the worn faces of grieved parents searching for missing children…”we just need closure.” But there…