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He is Still Here with Me, with Us
How has it been 5 years? It’s what I keep thinking lately. For some reason, this anniversary of Shawn’s death feels different. More significant, maybe, but also just strangely unsettling. You see, the first anniversary was one of deep grief, one that was overpowered by any other emotion. But as the anniversaries continued, I found that I could more easily face them, and sometimes even find meaning in them. My anxiety was – and is – still significant around January 9th. But I’ve learned to cope with it. I’ve learned to focus on my children and lean on Chris. And yet, I keep asking the same question: How has it…
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What Would He Be Like?
My kids like to ask questions that surprise me. They’re much more curious about illness and death and things like guardianship papers than most other kids their age, so I’m used to tough questions. We talk about what happens when people die, how adults plan for death and what it means to die young. You’d think I’d be prepared for every question, and yet, they still continue to surprise me. The other day, we were sitting around the dinner table talking about what would happen to them if Chris and I died. (They really want the specifics. I get it. It’s a possibility they know exists in the world.) Chris…
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What If It’s Better?
One of my favorite things to do is to read fiction. After a break when the kids were babies, I started to read fiction again in 2017, the year that Shawn got sick. Obviously, when he was in the hospital, my reading was put on hold, and once he died I found I couldn’t focus long enough to do much reading of anything. But as I began to heal, I also began to read again. Nonfiction was impossible for me at first, so I stuck with beach reads and dystopian fiction, my two favorites. Once Chris and I were seriously dating, he marveled at how I could get lost in…
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From the Archives: Marjorie, What If I’m Dying?
Throughout the past 4 1/2 years, I’ve written pieces that never appeared on the blog. Sometimes, these pieces of writing were too raw for me to share, and sometimes they were simply musings that I wasn’t sure were interesting for a bigger audience. Often, I wrote to process what had happened and to try and understand how my life had turned out the way it did. These writings went in a folder, and for the next few months, I plan to share some of them with you. I’m calling these posts, “From the Archives”. Here’s the first one. The pain in Shawn’s gut became obvious at the end of October,…
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Along the Coastline
The music was loud and the wind whipped through the car as we drove north. Chris and I had dropped our kids at overnight camp in Maine and had a weekend to ourselves. The scenery, especially as we neared the border, was spectacular. We were in Eastport (“Easternmost city in the United States!“) and it seemed that all that was ahead of us was the sea and the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. “Shawn always said Nova Scotia was the most beautiful place in the world,” I said to Chris. “He wanted to take me there. But I can’t imagine it being more beautiful than this.” “Well,…
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How We Remember
I’ve been in Texas all week, gathering with my family as we do every year. It’s been lovely, full of all the things that make my family great – big pool parties, loud arguments, belly laughs and a whole lot of ice cream. I haven’t done any work, and I haven’t even thought about writing, until now. I’ve simply enjoyed the company of my aunts and uncles and cousins and the zillion kids that are here. It’s been glorious. And so, it was a bit odd to be getting ready for lunch yesterday when I realized that it was July 3rd. It surprised me. Not that I had remembered the…
There’s No Handbook for How to Do This
