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His Smile
When we picked Tommy up from of overnight camp this summer, we noticed that his two front teeth had really come in. Just a week and his smile looked different! It looked just like Shawn’s. Claire and Austin once had the same teeth, but braces have straightened them. Shawn never had braces, and I always found his crooked smile endearing, though it was a bit out-of-place in polished Washington, DC. Still, it was a part of what made him who he was. And now Tommy was smiling just like him. We spent the next few weeks in a little cabin on the river, visiting Nana and Pop while we waited…
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From the Archives: The Funeral Home
It was 12 hours after Shawn died. And there were already a half-dozen places I had to visit. The first place I had to go was the worst: the funeral home. I piled in a minivan with my dad and a half-dozen of my friends and they drove me just a few blocks up the street. For years I had gone on runs past this funeral home and never noticed it. It wasn’t small, and it was on the main road. But what use did I have for funeral homes? The funeral home looked just like I’d expected it to look—heavy drapes, ornate wallpaper, ugly carpet and tacky wall hangings.…
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First Anniversary (600th blog post)
When Chris and I first started dating, I emphatically told him that I didn’t want to get married again. At that point, it had been over two years since Shawn died, and over that time, a lot had changed. In early widowhood, I imagined that some day, I’d get remarried. In fact, this lasted for almost the entire first year after Shawn died. At that time, I wanted to get married again for no real other reason than that I wanted someone to save me from the life I was living. Save me from single parenting. Save me from being one of a few solo parents at the elementary school…
There’s No Handbook for How to Do This
