The Long, and Last, Goodbyes

grief

Last Easter I look at these pictures and the first thing I notice is his smile. He was so happy that day. Eight months later, he would be gone. But this day… was the happiest I had seen him in years. His dementia had progressed so much that it was really challenging for mom to travel with him or take him out of the house much anymore. He was weak and unstable. And unable – or unwilling – to follow directions to the point it taxed mom beyond her capacity. We had decided to spend what could quite possibly be one last Easter in Somerset, an honor to our tradition. And, to visit…

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I Love to Tell the Story

faith, grief

My Daddy went to be with Jesus in December. Because I spent nine years grieving in anticipation, as he slipped further into his dementia, losing him a little every day, I have been surprised by the enormity of the shock I feel now. I keep having moments of realization over and over, in the middle of otherwise ordinary days: My Daddy is dead. Forever. It’s the finality of it that arrests me. I keep having to remind myself: his loss is still so fresh and recent, every time I am overcome by BIG, LOUD grief days and am surprised to find it hard to function well. I have been living and writing and…

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The Coldest Day of the Year

grief, relationships

December 12th, 2025 Today, love looked like: wearing a pair of one friend’s fleece-lined panty-hose while holding a hand-delivered latte from another. This is how two of my closest friends showed up for me in my grief, the day of my Dad’s funeral. It also looked like: A friend and a nanny who both brought sticker books for my son to keep him occupied in a long service.A sister and brother-in-law who drove two hours after a snowstorm just to be there.A childhood best friend who walked up and didn’t say a word, but hugged me tight – and held me upright – as I collapsed into her with sobs. She didn’t need…

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Worthy of Joy

faith, grief, momming

I bought this sweatsuit for myself some time in the last month while out running Christmas errands. Because apparently in this season of my life, self-care looks like treating myself to cozy clothes. I put it on for the first time the day after my Daddy died. My son, Samson, is learning to read, so he points and asks what things say a lot right now, when he can’t make it out himself. He asked about my shirt, the cursive script throwing him for a loop. When I told him the word was, “Joy”, he asked me why I was wearing that, if I was happy Grandaddy died. I came close and I…

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4 Years Later

faith, grief, memoir, momming

Following the four year anniversary of my brother’s death, my therapist asked about the week of my life surrounding the date. I explained how I journaled about a piece of that time I had never considered before, “It felt like a new way to sit in – or with – my grief.”  And then he asked, how I am feeling [with all that] right now? And, I don’t think I answered him well. I pivoted to something else because I knew my grief had already taken up enough time in our session that day. But if I could go back to the conversation, I would have explained that in this season of grieving,…

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A House Upon the Sand

faith, grief, memoir

The moment my brother ended his life, the foundational level of safety and security I lived with for 36 years crumbled beneath my very feet. I felt the innate protection of my big brother growing up. When I started elementary school, I was never picked on on the playground because everyone knew he was also there. In middle school, if a boy broke my heart or wouldn’t take no for an answer, I only had to mention a name in front of my brother and the problem would be mitigated. But even as an adult, that layer of security was steady and sure. At 25, my first husband secretively walked out on me…

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Never Enough

grief, Life Lessons, memoir, Spiritual Growth

In the Summer of 2020, my brother was on an internet reality show called Play to Win. The show, produced by a husband-and-wife entrepreneur team, is a spinoff-of-sorts of NBC’s primetime hit The Apprentice. A group of contestants compete for a “life-changing job” or a “six-figure coaching opportunity”. [1]. During one interview with the hosts, the wife called my brother out for being fake, wearing a mask. She said, “I feel like there’s something you’re hiding. …Maybe it’s because you always have a smile on your face. …You hide your true self behind the smiles and the positivity all the time.” With teary eyes and trembling voice my brother described how, for most…

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Inventory Your Losses

grief, memoir

The Shot Heart Round the County When my brother was 17, he made a half-court basketball shot that changed his life. He was not a basketball player, save for the one year he joined the team in elementary school, when he learned it was not his passion. But like a lot of kids, we had a hoop in our driveway and grew up shooting H.O.R.S.E. and P.I.G. on the makeshift blacktop court with cousins and friends. In our small, sleepy Kentucky town, high school basketball games were practically a social engagement. Everyone goes. Same with football. Local businesses sponsor the team and host special events at the games to boost attendance (and for…

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A Grief Observed

freedom, grief, Life Lessons, memoir, Spiritual Growth

“Losing a beloved is an amputation.” – C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed I once listened to a podcast in which a psychiatrist was talking about why it feels like we lose a part of ourselves when we lose a loved one. He said that, unwittingly, we store information, memories and experiences in the brains of other people we are close to; like an external hard drive. Our own minds have limited capacity to keep all the data we need, so we share mental and emotional data resources with others. We see this phenomenon to be particularly true when someone loses a spouse and has no idea what the bank password is, or what…

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It’s Got to Be Like Planning a Party, Right?

faith, freedom, grief, memoir

My mom plopped down across from me in the nursery looking hurried and determined as she readied to leave my house. She and my Dad had stayed with us three of the four weeks since my son was born, but today they were rushing back home. It had been less than 12 hours since the phone call that changed our lives. They were trying to beat the news back to my Grandmother – my Memaw – so she could hear about the death of her only grandson from them instead of Channel 12. They didn’t make it, by the way. The story broke before they could drive the three hours to their house…

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