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A Genuine Offer, Freely Given, With Gladness
Okay, here’s a little secret about widowed parenting (or at least my version of widowed parenting): sometimes I leave my kids home alone. I try not to. Claire is old enough to watch her brothers, yes, but Tommy is still little and I don’t want to put such a burden on her. That first summer after Shawn died, I actually looked up what the rules were about leaving kids home alone. My dad was gone and I wanted to be able to run around the block or pop out to get some milk without taking all three of them every single time. I was dismayed to learn that they needed…
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Breaking Point
Monday was a beautiful day here in Washington, and after a very frustrating session of trying to help Tommy read, I decided that we should spend a little time laying in the hammock. I got in and he sat in my lap. Then he laid his head on my stomach and we swung back and forth and I thought, “this is a bit of perfection.” Austin snapped a photo and when he showed it to me, I thought it was so cute that I sent it to a friend. My friend texted me back something sweet, but then added, “did you see the stay-at-home order?” I immediately went to my…
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Ask a Widow: What If He’s Not Shawn?
People love to write me about dating – how to start doing it, how to talk to someone you’re interested in, how to handle the dramas of dating (there are so many). One of the things I see repetitively on my blog are questions or comments about the specific issues pertinent to dating as a widow. There are a number of these, but one in particular stands out. I’ll paraphrase, but it usually goes something like this: I’m trying to date again because I don’t want to be alone. I am going out on dates, but nothing feels quite right. At the end of each date I think, “that person…
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Eleven
My sweet Claire, today is your birthday. You are eleven. This one seems different than the others, somehow. You are so much older and wiser, so much more aware of the world around you. Maybe it’s how all 11-year-olds are. But something makes me think you have just a bit more insight than many kids your age. The light in your eyes is bright, but you have wisdom in them too. That, I think, is something that’s special about you. Life hasn’t always been easy on you, but you have made the best lemonade out of the lemons you’e been dealt. Yes, you lost your father when you were just…
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It’s Not Something You Can Catch
I was at a party a while back and I met a group of single people. The host introduced me to them after I mentioned the difficulty of meeting people outside my circle of (mostly married) friends. Everyone was kind (though no one shook hands, because even though it was February, we were still being cautious – you didn’t know what you could catch!) and we started chatting about nothing. Eventually, people started sharing stories of how they’d met each other, and a couple of them talked about getting divorced and finding support in other divorced people. They could share stories with each other, and also commiserate about parenting. I…
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Sore Throat
I woke up with a sore throat this morning.* I’m writing this at 5:30 in the morning. A few minutes ago, I woke up with a slight headache and a sore throat. It’s the kind of thing that I would have totally dismissed a month ago. I would have pulled myself together, taken an Advil, gone running with Purva and taught a day’s worth of lessons, never thinking about the sore throat again. But these are not normal times, are they? So I’m sitting in my living room drinking honey and lemon tea, trying not to freak out. I can already hear what my dad and sister are going to…
There’s No Handbook for How to Do This
