-
From the Archives: I Just Remembered That It’s All Real
“None of my clothes fit,” I said one morning as I stripped off the jeans that gaped at my waist. It had been a week since Shawn died and more than six weeks since I had eaten a normal meal. Kelly and Paige both sat on the edge of my bed, watching me throw clothes out of my closet. They were still staying with me, helping me get through the terrible tasks that followed the funeral. We’d come upstairs in the hope that I could clean out Shawn’s closet, but I felt overwhelmed after taking just one flannel shirt off of a hanger. “This can wait,” Kelly said, and I…
-
From the Archives: Kelly and Paige
Two years after my mom died, I met my two best friends, Kelly and Paige, at the UCLA family camp in the San Bernardino Mountains where we all worked in the summer before we graduated. Kelly made french fries at the sandwich shop and Paige ran the art center and I organized games for elementary school kids. We all lived together with a few dozen other college kids in a dorm with walls so thin we could hear every word of each other’s conversations, even with the doors closed. “Someone is making out next door to me, but I’m not sure who!” I’d scream-whisper to one of them in the…
-
From Standing to Dancing
The thing about being a widow is that you become kind-of a crappy friend, at least for a little while. You cry at people’s weddings. You ruin perfectly good barbeques by talking just a little too much about your late husband. You’re never on time. You forget to call people back and you never remember anyone’s birthday besides your own. You never do the carpool and you certainly don’t organize weekly get-togethers. Sometimes when you get together with your friends, everyone spends all of their emotional energy on you. At times, it’s not a lot of fun to be a widow’s friend. Still, so many people have been good friends…
-
Sundance or Sunscreen?
I was walking on the beach with my dear friend Kelly one day a few months ago. We were talking about everything that you talk about with a friend you’ve known for 20 years – our families, our careers, our futures. The sun was setting as we walked, and I took a moment to let the water run over my toes and to feel really alive. It’s great to feel that way. When it happens, I often find myself able to think about the future. At that point in my life, I’d just ended the first romance I’d been in since Shawn’s death. I was reeling from the emotions that…
There’s No Handbook for How to Do This
