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Old Places, New Meanings
There is a farm where the earth is flat and the grass is brown this time of year, but the fireplace is so warm that it’s hard to stay awake next to it. Up above, the birds fly in large flocks, and even when I’m out on a long run, I can see the house in the distance, glowing. The house is old and creaky, with pipes that mostly work and bookshelves that hold generations of memories. It is a place where you can curl up with a blanket all afternoon, just like we both have done over the years. It is a place that I have loved for many…
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I Am Happy, Like You Wanted
My school is a place where we celebrate everything. Christmas, Diwali, Passover….you name it. I love that we celebrate all of the many wonderful traditions that students do at home. This year, a teacher from my department decided that we should do a Day of the Dead altar, something from his culture. He invited us all to participate by bringing a framed photo of a dead loved one, as well as an object that person loved. The display was covered in orange flowers and slowly a few photos appeared. After a few days, I decided I wanted to add my own photo, so I went back to my desk to…
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‘Till Death Do Us Part
In just a few days, under the bright Maine sky, Chris and I will be married. We’ve thought a lot about our wedding, about how we want to share our love with our family and friends, and what it means to formally recognize our commitment to each other. We think we’ve got a lot of unique moments planned for the ceremony. But one thing that won’t be unique? Our vows. We decided early on that we wanted to say traditional Episcopal wedding vows. We liked the simplicity and we liked that we’d be saying the same words that so many people have said before us. This is what I will…
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If My Wedding is Cancelled, Then I Can Make Jury Duty
I came home a few days ago to a letter in the mail with the dreaded “official jury summons” stamp across the front. I sighed and picked it up. I guess it was time to me to have jury duty again. The last time I’d gone, in fact, was just a few weeks after Shawn died. Here’s part of what I wrote that day, from one of my oldest blog posts, Chuck E. Cheese and Jury Duty: It’s 8:30 am and I’m sitting with 200 of my fellow DC residents, waiting to be called for jury duty. My friends all thought I should defer, that coming to jury duty would…
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Successes (Part 2 of 2)
My life as a young widow has included a lot of failure, especially in (though not limited to!) the first year. There were so many things I did wrong, so many choices I regretted and so many ways in which I made my already difficult circumstances worse. And yet, my years of widowhood have not all been about failure. In fact – even that first year – I’ve had some successes. So, here they are! Ways I’ve succeeded as a widow: Logistics: One of the very first failures I experienced was my broken washing machine, which happened less than a week after Shawn died. It was just the start of…
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A Happy Ending
One of my favorite authors (who I profiled for the Post a few years ago) is Nora McInerny, a young widow who is a writer and a podcaster. She wrote a book that came out a few years ago called “No Happy Endings” which, as you can imagine, was about how there is always going to be grief that remains after losing someone, even if we find a new love. (It’s about a lot of other things, too, so check out this link if you’d like to read what I wrote.) In any case, lately I’ve been thinking about the idea that grief never really goes away. I think it’s…
There’s No Handbook for How to Do This
