• Grandpa Tom helps DC widow blog writer Marjorie Brimley Hale in her kitchen
    From the Archives

    From the Archives: You Are Making Meaning Already

    About a year after Shawn died, I had a short but passionate relationship with a man I’ll call Derek. It ended badly. I didn’t want to admit to most of my friends that the breakup hit me really hard. I told them that I wasn’t sure why I was down, but that I seemed to be experiencing new grief. Really, the original misery over losing Shawn had never gone away. But my relationship with Derek had tamped that grief down, had made it smooth around the edges, encapsulated in a vessel that I could hold and manage. Somehow, our breakup had broken that vessel and the grief spilled out everywhere.…

  • Sticker about death for blog by DC widow writer Marjorie Brimley Hale
    New Perspectives

    Any Day You Can Die

    I was walking to my Spanish class the other day and out of the corner of my eye I saw a sticker on a post that was in English. I guess it grabbed my attention because I don’t see much in English in my daily life. Or maybe it’s because of what it said: Any Day You Can Die I stared at it for a minute, and then snapped a photo. Was it encouragement? A nihilistic viewpoint? A threat? A dose of reality for English speakers? Who knows! But I kept thinking about this sticker all day. A few nights later, we went out to dinner as a family. Out…

  • Farmhouse for blog by DC widow writer Marjorie Brimley Hale
    From the Archives

    From the Archives: My Mom’s Diary (Part 2 of 2)

    The diary took me a long time to finish, but I read it all in one sitting. When I was done, I realized I had used almost all of the tabs. Each page was full of my notes, with arrows pointing to the margins where I’d written questions or tried to connect her thoughts. I came downstairs to my friends. “How did it go?” Michelle asked. She was on the couch, also writing, and Becky was across the room, fiddling with her camera. They both turned to face me. “It was…” I couldn’t find the right words. They waited for me to finish. “It was a lot.” “I’m sure it…