Warning: While not graphic, this post does contain description of deceased person shortly after their death.

Yesterday, as my mother and I sat in the police station, the detective slowly pushed the manilla folder across the table to us, saying, “We’ve never done anything like this before. We didn’t expect…

Making ourselves brave

I have always said you changed who I am, Hannahbelle, immeasurably and for the better. But, it still feels like a heartlessly cruel punishment that I have to reflect on this, your one-year “anniversary” (what are we supposed to call it?), and not with you.

I like…

Searching

For a long time — for most of my life — I turned over the smooth, round, shadow-grey stones at my feet, hoping I would lift them to find some treasure or fulfillment, or at the very least some small, moving salamander or even larva, underneath. All I found…

Together and alone

I sit now on the other side of the thorny thicket of the first winter holiday season without my sister and in the cold, unsteady but gently learning hands of a new year and a new decade. That this year is 2020 is not lost on me…

The Gift of the Magi

My 92-year-old grandmother called to tell me she wants to give me the ring she has always worn. Now, before she loses it, she said, but what I heard was: “Now, because I am dying soon.” The ring was her favorite aunt’s, and I’ve never…

My sister, Hannah, died nine months ago. I am immeasurably changed, but, then, how else would I be? Grief, like time, is always moving. It ambles forward or sideways in its thick, plodding way. Just as decay is inscribed into the building plan of everything fresh, grief — that black…

I used to be half-in/half-out about what happens after we die. Are there spirits? Is there a place? Is there anything? But, seven months after she has died, the more I am forgetting the exact touch of my sister Hannah’s hand and the precise features of her face, the more…

We are the patrons of grief. We bear the burden of loss embroidered into each of our lifetimes. …