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You’re Not Bothering Me
“I don’t want to bother you….” starts the email. It’s nothing new. I get an email or a text or something like this at least a couple of times a day. At first, when Shawn was sick and then immediately after he died, I couldn’t really process anything. I read the emails and then never responded and I figured people understood. If I’m being honest, I didn’t even care. I appreciated the outreach in the immediate aftermath, but (and I’m sorry here for everyone who helped me) I honestly can’t really remember who did what. I was in such a fog. I’m not totally out of that fog yet, but…
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An Uncomfortable Reality
A few days ago I was waiting to pick up Claire from school, baking under the newly hot weather we’re getting these days. I was standing around with all of the other parents and babysitters and somehow ended up next to an acquaintance I hadn’t seen in awhile. “Oh, Marjorie,” she said to me, “I haven’t seen you since….everything happened. How are you doing?” I didn’t quite know how to respond. Was I not supposed to talk about Shawn’s death since she couldn’t bring herself to mention it? I had always liked this woman, and though we weren’t close, her kids had been in class with mine. And yet she…
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Peace Be With You
Getting to church on time has proven to be very difficult in the past few months. Hell, getting anywhere on time in the past few months has been tough. So it was no surprise when I arrived to services halfway through the first reading with my three kids last Sunday. Austin and Claire ran ahead and found Austin’s godparents, Josh and Becky. They were sitting in a row with their own children and an elderly couple on the aisle. My kids starting climbing over this couple to get to Josh and Becky. They were making a huge racket and I embarrassingly sat down in an adjacent row with Tommy. Becky gave…
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Frozen
I was dropping off Tommy at a play date the other day with a friend. The mother, my friend, had invited a few kids over, and as I turned around, I saw one of Tommy’s classmates with her dad. He looked at me, trying to place me. Our mutual friend said, “Oh, I’m sure you know Tommy’s mom.” He froze. I stood there awkwardly, balancing my youngest kid on my hip. “I’m Marjorie,” I said to him. “I think we met at the parent social but it’s great to see you again.” He fumbled through some sort of greeting, but it didn’t matter. I’d seen him freeze, and I knew…
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All Kinds of Therapy
I can’t even remember all of the people who sat in my kitchen and listened to me cry in the first few weeks of Shawn’s diagnosis. But I do remember them being there, and listening to me, and not usually knowing what to say, but staying nonetheless. They validated my feelings that things were horrible, that it was unfair, and that everything was impossible. “Of course you’re overwhelmed/frustrated/terribly sad” said everyone. No one tried to cheer me up with ridiculous optimism, and almost everyone let me really express my emotions. This was a far cry from how people reacted when my mom died. Granted, I was only 19, so most people…
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First Day Back
When I went to put on my shoes this morning, I realized they were caked with mud. For a moment, I was confused. But then I remembered – the last time I wore these shoes was at Shawn’s burial on that freezing January day. Ugh. It was the first thing to trigger my grief and it was only 6:30 in the morning. And today was going to be a big day, because it was my first day back at work since early January. I actually worked through a lot of Shawn’s hospital stay, because we thought he would eventually be okay and someone needed to make sure to maintain a steady…
There’s No Handbook for How to Do This
