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There’s No Crying at the Swim-Up Bar
It was beautiful – paradise in fact – and there I was, crying at the swim-up bar. The winter this year was bleak on the east coast, which in some ways was nice because the weather matched my emotional state. But months of grief and ice were getting to me and to my kids and spring break beckoned. So, we packed everything up and headed south, to somewhere that would maybe provide an escape from all the cold and misery and death. For the first few days, it was bliss, or as close to bliss as I’d felt since early fall. The weather was perfect and the beach was beautiful.…
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One King Bed
“So, it’s you and your children and your husband?” the woman at the check-in counter asked me. The lobby of the hotel was crowded, so I’m sure she was having a hard time figuring out who was with me. I had arrived with a group of friends, and the kids ran everywhere. “No,” I said, and then because I couldn’t help myself, “my husband died in January.” She looked at me like every person does who gets that knowledge unexpectedly. I realize that I could have said, “no, it’s just me and the kids,” or something else that would solve her immediate problem of how to check us in without…
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The Guitar Lesson Guy
I’m sitting in the lobby of the place where my daughter takes guitar lessons. I can hear her (and a half dozen other kids) playing music in one of the many rooms behind me. This is a whole new experience for me because until a few weeks ago, I’d never been here. Claire started guitar lessons in September. It was Shawn’s idea. He bought her and Austin guitars last Christmas and desperately hoped that they would both be interested enough to learn a bit with him. But he was a self-taught player and insisted that at some point they would need formal lessons. He decided that the time for Claire…
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The Little Hand on My Back
My middle child, Austin, is not the extrovert like his older sister and younger brother. Though he doesn’t hide from a crowd, he’s most happy at home, reading books, riding his bike in the alley, and cuddling in our big chair with me. He’s always been this way. Shawn and I spent a painful year watching Austin scream and cry every single day when we’d leave him at the preschool doors. The next year was less dramatic, but he still shed many tears. Finally in kindergarten he could walk into the classroom without crying, but he would still turn around the entire time and watch us, running into his classmates…
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There’s Only One Option, and This Is It
My life before Shawn got sick was charmed in so many ways. Like many other people who live privileged lives, I had only a vague sense of how perfect everything was. Many times since Shawn has died, I’ve thought, “what was life even like before he was sick?” So I went back to my Google calendar and tried to figure it out. The first week in October, right before before he first started having stomach pain, my calendar was filled with things like, “Shawn on field trip with Austin,” “elementary school fall picnic,” “Claire guitar lesson,” and “dinner with friends.” God, it was so normal. Looking at my calendar led…
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My Eulogy of Shawn
This is the eulogy that I read at Shawn’s funeral on January 13, 2018: I only had him for 15 years, but I wanted him for 50 more. But Shawn would not want me to talk about how unfair it is that he was taken from me – and from all of us – far, far too soon. I know because that’s how he lived his life. Shawn was grateful for every single day he had on this planet. I know because he told me. Not just in the final days of his life but in every day before that. And so, today, I will tell you a piece of…
There’s No Handbook for How to Do This
