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Springtime, Finally
We have the most beautiful double-flowering cherry tree in our backyard, one that produces blossoms so huge that everyone marvels at it. When Shawn and I put an offer on the house, in the spring of 2012, it was in full bloom and seemed to take over the yard. A year later, at Austin’s birthday party, the kids ran under the tree as pink petals blew everywhere, almost as though they were running through a snowstorm. At some point, Shawn told all the kids to stand under the tree and then he shook one of the branches, producing a million loose petals. A dozen tiny voices screamed with joy, and…
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Just Keep Doing It
Last week I realized that I hadn’t washed my car for an entire year. Why would I wash it? I rarely drove it on a day-to-day basis anymore, and when we went on long car trips I figured it was going to get dirty anyway. Plus, I truly don’t care about my car. When Shawn was alive, I did almost nothing to it, as he was in charge of all of the maintenance, right down to the windshield wiper fluid. After he died, I learned enough to keep it running, but I only cleaned it when it was truly disgusting. And I haven’t been in it enough lately to care.…
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Time Travel
I love teaching for so many reasons, but I get a particular thrill when I hear from a student who I taught long ago. At this point, I have many students who are grown adults with careers and partners and even children of their own. Sometimes my students write me notes or find me on social media, and every once in a while I run into them out in the world. In fact, when I was in labor with Austin ten years ago, I was triaged with another woman who was also in labor. “Ms. Clark?” she asked, using my maiden name from my earliest teaching days, and I turned…
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The View From Across the Street
Our house is on a funny corner in DC. The way that it’s situated, we have a lot more interactions with the people behind us than we do with the people in front of us. I have almost daily exchanges with the neighbors behind us – we have kids with similar ages, and throughout the years (and especially this pandemic) our children have played together in the alley. That alley behind our house is where Tommy learned to ride his bike as the neighbors cheered him on; it’s the place Austin went every day after school to play and eat dinner with his friend Grant’s family; it’s the alley where…
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Single Parenting, Not Solo Parenting
If you’re a widow with young kids, I bet you’ve heard the argument surrounding solo vs. single parenting. But for those of you who don’t know, it’s a debate that’s not just about semantics. Here’s the key question: Are widowed parents “single parents”, or should we use the term “solo parents”? Single parenting, the argument goes, includes many types of people. A single parent might be a divorced parent, who sees their children only half of the time. The term “single parent” is also sometimes used by parents who are alone with their kids for stretches of time (days or weeks or longer) while their partner is working somewhere else.…
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A Conversation
People write me sometimes for a variety of reasons, but one of the most common things I am asked is, “how are you navigating love after loss?” After some prodding (he initially said, “who am I to dole out advice?” and I countered that he knows a whole lot about this specific topic), I got Chris to let me publish a discussion that we had. When he re-read it, he said, “I hope people understand that most of our relationship – like 99.9% of it! – is happy and joyful!” That’s true, of course, but today’s discussion is about the tough stuff – because that’s what people ask me about.…
There’s No Handbook for How to Do This
