“Mom, I have to tell you something important,” Claire said to me in late November. “I know Gingee isn’t real.” I froze, a bit. Gingee is our elf. She’s actually just a stuffed doll that Shawn and I got when Claire was 4 or 5 during the elf-on-the-shelf craze (Claire named our elf Gingee at […]
Christmas
Tommy’s Christmas List
Tommy has the most insane Christmas list this year. He’s been working on it for over a month, and there are dozens of things across the two pages. He can’t spell anything, so he’s constantly asking me to help him spell things like, “Freddy Krueger claws.” That’s just the beginning. Also included are the following: […]
Excerpt from Marjorie’s Speech, “Remembering Those We Love”
On December 1st, 2017 my husband Shawn was diagnosed with Stage 4 colon cancer. He never left the hospital for more than a short stint at home. Less than six weeks later, on January 9th, 2018 he died in my arms. So to say that the holidays are fraught for me….well, that’s an understatement if […]
Sweet Potato Fries
The morning of Shawn’s funeral, I went to put on the one black skirt I had, and it literally fell off my body. I hadn’t realized until that point how much weight I had lost over the previous six weeks. My sister helped pin the skirt on me, and told me that really, it didn’t […]
Christmas Eve
A few days ago, I was scrolling through Facebook and saw someone complaining that her child had just radically changed his Christmas list. “He wants a dozen laser tag guns now! And I just finished all of the wrapping!” the person whined. I get it. These small details can be annoying when we have a […]
Decorating for Christmas
My front yard looks like something out of one of those bad Christmas movies. I’m serious. There are lights randomly strewn about, two fake deer, a dozen solar-powered candy canes and two massive inflatable figures – a snowman and a Santa. I bought none of this stuff – it was all Shawn. Last year, he […]