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My Babies Are Here With Me
“Thank God my Dad is almost home,” I texted a friend late Wednesday night. A part of me had been worried that we overreacted when we decided he should leave DC and return to rural Oregon. But then Wednesday night happened, and I was sure that I’d made the right call. No travel to Europe. The NBA suspends its season. Tom Hanks has coronavirus. My phone lit up so many times in the hour after I put my boys to bed, I almost couldn’t process it. I knew I had to remain calm, but nothing about the past 48 hours had felt calm. My school was closed for cleaning and…
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Sometimes We Make Hard Choices When We Love Someone
Here’s something you may not know about me: my hair falls out when I’m under intense stress. I’ve had alopecia for most of my life, though thankfully it’s concentrated on the back of my head. When it gets really bad, I can’t wear a ponytail, but otherwise most people don’t notice. I can actually measure the amount of stress I’m under by what happens with my hair. And right now, my hair is falling out. The stress started a few weeks ago. My dad had gotten sick, and I was really worried about him. Coronavirus cases continued to pop up, and I was concerned about the likely spread to DC.…
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An Imperfect Parent
The thing about living in DC is that you’re going to get called for jury duty every other year, no matter what. Even if you’re dead. I have proof! The other day, I came home from school, said hello to my kids, and started opening the mail that my dad had brought inside. Right there on top was a summons for jury duty for Shawn. “Dear God, what the Hell is this?” I said, exasperated, to my dad. Without missing a beat, he replied, “I took care of it.” “What?” I said, confused. “Well, I figured you didn’t need to deal with this so I called the number on the…
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Ask a Widow: What’s So Hard With Online Dating?
Today’s “Ask a Widow” column comes from a comment I hear from a lot of people, most of whom are not online dating. It goes something like this: “you’re lucky to be dating in the digital age. Think of how many people you can meet online!”I know it’s meant to be encouraging. But I usually respond with some sort of comment about how dating is never easy, and that online dating is even more challenging than regular dating. This usually surprises people and often leads to the next question, the one I’m going to answer today: What’s so hard with online dating? If you are a widow who is trying…
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I’m Still Alive!
It was Monday morning last week when I started to really worry. I was back at work after a week off and my dad was really sick. “How are you feeling?” I asked. “I’m still alive!” he texted back. At least I knew he still had his sense of humor. But my dad was really sick. He claimed he’d just gotten a virus, but he was so lethargic it was worrying me. Needless to say, I don’t do well with debilitating illness anymore. And neither does anyone in my family. Claire and Austin had been asking me about Grandpa Tom ever since our return from vacation. “Is he okay?” Austin…
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Disaster Prep and the Coronavirus
When Shawn was alive, we always had a disaster plan. We designated a place that we would meet outside the city if we had to escape, we had canned goods and backpacks of supplies, and we owned a damn generator. I mean, we were ready. But really, I wasn’t ready at all. I was just married to Shawn, and he was a tiny bit obsessed with the idea of an impending apocalypse. Usually, he brought it up in a semi-joking way, talking about the zombie apocalypse or something similarly silly. But sometimes – like when he got an inside look at some type of government planning in case of a…
There’s No Handbook for How to Do This
