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Fierce Loyalty
When my mom died, my dad couldn’t face cleaning out her closet. I was just 19, and so it didn’t fully make sense to me why the closet had more meaning than any other space. I volunteered to do it, and along with my sister Lindsay and our childhood friend Marcie, I went through my mother’s clothes. It was a quiet process, which is my lasting memory. Marcie took things out of the closet and my sister and I sorted through them. My sister, always meticulous, folded the clothes that we were going to keep. I don’t remember much else. I do remember that Lindsay and I talked very little…
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Election Day 2020
Like many middle-school kids in America, Claire is hyper-aware of the upcoming election. She may not understand all of the nuances, but she does get that the adults around her are on edge. She knows that the stores in DC are getting boarded up. She hears about the election every day at school from her peers and teachers and she also observes a lot when I’m teaching my government classes. She’s still a child, but she’s too old for me to shield her from much. The other day she turned to me and said, “what if something bad happens after the election?” “Claire,” I said, “I understand your concern, but…
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That’s a Special Feeling
The post below was written by my daughter, Claire, for her 6th grade language arts class. The assignment was to write about a “defining moment” from the last 6 months. I loved it so much that I asked her to put it on my blog, and she gracefully said “yes.” It is the original assignment, unedited by me. ——– When my dad died I felt confused like my family and I would never feel happy again. I look back to that day 2 ½ years ago and realize that I have moved on with my life, which is a good thing. For a long time it was just my mom…
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I’m Not a Polygamist*
Every year since Shawn died, I’ve hosted the “parent parties” for my kids’ classes. Basically, they are parties where the parents of the kids in a specific class gather to meet each other as well as the teacher of the class (the kids don’t come.) They are fun nights that involve very little preparation and only a few hours of clean-up, so I like to do them as a way to show that I’m an involved parent. I also like to do them because then I don’t have to answer the question all year long about where my husband is. Sure, I usually have a few awkward conversations during the…
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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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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
