Tag: loss
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“In order to be remembered… You have to leave.”
I shared this 11 years ago of Facebook. It’s a quote from Grey’s Anatomy “I wanted to break new ground. I wanted to leave a legacy. I wanted my life, my brain, my existence to mean something. The thing I never really thought about, though, the thing I never really wrapped my brain about until…
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A Constant Background of Wrongness
It has been well over a year. I can say that sentence out loud now. I can write it. I can count the months on a calendar and acknowledge that seasons have turned, birthdays and holidays have come and gone. And still, it feels completely absurd that Jess is gone. Not poetic. Not metaphorical. Absurd.…
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I Currently Live for Morning
I wrote this last year, and so much of it is still true. What has shifted is the hunt for newness. The memories still come, but they do not always surprise me the way they used to. Still, I come back to morning, because morning is where I keep finding Jess, even when the finding…
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Always Yes
Sometimes I wonder if love always knew what it was asking of me Long before I held her Long before I knew her love of snails or the sound of her laugh Maybe the universe already understood the length of her life Seventeen years Six months Thirteen days A whole lifetime, even if it was…
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Silliness Challenge
Today, I caught myself saying: “I just love the silliness.” It happened while watching a clip of Carol Burnett being accused of “cheating on Wordle” because she’s managed to get it in one guess, a staggering seven times! The interview went on to discuss how her celebrity friends were sure she must be cheating. It…
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The Things With Nowhere to Go
Note: This piece grew out of the conversation that followed when I first shared my thoughts about the things we keep after loss. So many people wrote with their own stories, and each one carried the same quiet ache — the longing for continuity, the wish that our love could keep unfolding through the hands…
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Teach Your Community How to Remember With You
People often want to reach out when someone dies. They really do. But most of the time, they don’t know how. They don’t know what’s safe to say or if it will make you cry or if you’d rather not talk about it at all. So they wait. Or they stay quiet. And that silence…
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Moving Into the Second Year Without Jess
I am moving into the second year without Jess, and grief feels different now. I suppose the shock has worn off. There is no longer that moment of sudden disbelief that she is gone. Instead, there’s a steady, familiar ache. I am no longer surprised by her absence. I am simply, regularly saddened by it.…
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Do We Push People Away By Remembering Out Loud?
Since my daughter Jess died, I have been finding ways to keep her present. I tell stories. I make little #JessInspired games. I invite friends into playful or tender moments that carry her name. For me, these things feel restorative and even fun. They bring a spark of joy into a space that is often…
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The Ache of Forgetting
This sweatshirt caught me off guard. I loved it instantly: a frog with a sword, wearing a cape, shouting Huzzah! But what undid me was what came after. Memory. I had forgotten that Jess loved the word Huzzah. In the months before she died, she used it constantly, tossing it into texts, jokes, and silly…
Grief Heart Project 