How To Honor A Painful Loss By Living with Intention

How To Honor A Painful Loss By Living with Intention

Hi Friends! I have been giving a lot of thought to loss. In fact, I have been living within the painful cycle of grief since my father passed away on January 30, 2021. I’ve been wondering, how can I remember him without being sad all the time? And, believe me, I am okay with being […]

These Days Since My Father’s Death

These Days Since My Father’s Death

These days since my father’s death I’ve been moving through life at my usual pace. Seeing me from the outside doesn’t look much different than before, but my insides feel crumpled. It’s as if my insides were a sheet of paper crumpled up into a small ball that has been laid flat on the table […]

The Day My Children Said Goodbye To Their Grandfather

The Day My Children Said Goodbye To Their Grandfather

My friends, it was a cold and windy morning on the 29th of January when my children said goodbye to their Poppy. It had only been 4 short months since he sat at their soccer games cheering from the sidelines. 5 months since he sat in church watching his grandson receive the sacrament of eucharist. […]

Now That You Are Gone

Now That You Are Gone

It has been almost three whole days since you died. Looking back at the five days you spent home on hospice, replaying each moment, I have come to understand some important things about those days. First, time felt suspended. I have never felt something so surreal. I was looking at my watch often waiting for […]

Little Eyes Are Watching Me Through This Incredibly Painful Time

Little Eyes Are Watching Me Through This Incredibly Painful Time

Life is but a combination of fleeting moments strung together to create hours, days, years, and decades. As I sit next to my dying father, I am running through the combination of fleeting moments from our life together. I remember less of what he said to me and more of how he made me feel. […]

Find Joy in the Journey

Find Joy in the Journey

My friends, if you are like me, certain inspirational sayings crawl right up your back when you’re not in the right state of mind to hear them. Words can lose their meaning when I’m not in the right place to receive them, and yet, it doesn’t make their meaning any less true. I am my […]

How to Separate Helpless from Worthless, a Work in Progress

How to Separate Helpless from Worthless, a Work in Progress

My friends, I stopped doing my house work. The dishes from New Years Eve sat in the sink until January 5th. I walked over the same small plastic straw wrapper umpteen times without any regard. I devised a special laundry system that involved leaving all clean laundry in baskets . . . unfolded. When I […]

One Mother’s Post: How to Survive Christmas with a Hospitalized Father

One Mother’s Post: How to Survive Christmas with a Hospitalized Father

Oh my friends, to suggest that I could teach you how to survive anything is incredibly presumptuous as to any sort of qualifications I have as a person. What the title should read is, I survived Christmas with a hospitalized father. Kind of . . . The aftermath of yesterday laid strewn all over the […]