I have never been able to open up those Pillsbury roll cans. I have walked outside and gone to a neighbor’s house and asked someone to open the can out of my earshot and then bring it back to me on the porch. I cannot bear not knowing when the can will pop. (I quit… Read More Antici
On October 30, our church hosted Celebrate Light, as it does every year. My husband and I manned a booth for Chuck the Chicken, and in between scooping out candy for the kids and dipping down to pick up chucked chickens I scanned the crowd for my son. The festival was the one time each… Read More Six months missing.
Last semester was the first time I showed Angela Maiers’ video You Matter to my students. I had them write a reflection on it, and we briefly discussed it, but it wasn’t till this semester that I tasked students with activating the ideas Angela spoke of. (It was a V8 moment. Kuh! Be the change,… Read More The Book of Noticing: You Matter.
You walk this thin line when you’re going through an emotionally dark time. On one side you’ve got an abyss of fear, and on the other is a pit of despair. You have to let go of things that throw off your balance. If you hold on to a thing that crowds your brain with… Read More This hard thing
Someone asked me where Day 1 was of the Blog of Missing. I started with Day 20, which is kind of a let-down, right? Where’s the beginning? There should be a Day 1. A way to find the genesis of the heartache. And there should be words for every day of the missingness. We’ve got… Read More The Blog of Missing Day 118: An update
The past couple of days have been difficult. I’m not always skilled at knowing what I’m feeling. And sometimes the feelings have a delayed arrival, so that further complicates things. It’s taken two days for me to recognize that I shifted into the Bad Mom space, my parallel universe. I’m in the slipstream of grief,… Read More Grief slipstream
“The people who say you are not facing reality actually mean that you are not facing their idea of reality. Reality is above all else a variable. With a firm enough commitment, you can sometimes create a reality which did not exist before.” Margaret Halsey I’m in this godawful weird place where I don’t know… Read More The cat must be fed
When the boys were little, I’d put them down for their naps in their cribs and play this album. Being Mom was simpler. What is this sadness I feel? Jake has not been found; I can’t be mourning his loss. Yet. So is this fear masquerading as grief? No. Fear travels on the skin like cold… Read More Kitaro therapy
Thank you, Candace Payne, for reminding me that joy in simple things brings the light. My husband insisted I watch this. I’d ignored it on Facebook because it looked dorky, and actually, it kinda is, but therein lies the charm. It made me remember to be myself, to pay attention to small things, like talking… Read More What brings the light
Yesterday started out a little cloudy, but manageable, and then I had an encounter with someone who made me cry. It was nothing monumental; he was just not as kind as he could have been, and since I’m raw these days, it doesn’t take much to undo me. It was the culmination of several unmindful… Read More The blog of missing: Day 25