They come to the site broken by life, hearts crushed by emotional pain.  They have lost siblings, spouses, children, parents, best friends and lovers.  They come seeking support, assurance that they are not alone in their unbearable grief. (more…)

They handed her to me, still covered in the fluids of birth.  She might have been an angel sent directly from heaven.  10 fingers.  10 toes.  Two tiny, little ears.  She was perfect in every way.

And somehow, eighteen years later, she’s all grown up.  The time passed at once quickly and slowly:  lazy days  . . . lightning years.  In a singularly long blink of an eye, her childhood is over and now, at least in the eyes of the law, she’s an adult. (more…)

I gaze out my window and I see only snow . . . a wall of winter white . . . and the world shut down.  Schools and airports are closed.  Doctors and dentists have nothing but cancellations.  Retailers hibernate.

And once the storm has passed, we are launched into work:  snow blowing, shoveling, salting, and plowing.  I’m reminded that snow days, like grief, require a persistent energy. (more…)

“I vow to love and honor you in sickness and in health.”  I blinked back tears as Dan and I watched the lovebirds celebrate their new year’s wedding.  And then, just as I was launching my own new year . . . I got sick.

Not terribly sick, but a monstrous head cold that has sapped the energy out of my first week of 2011.  I’m not a nice convalescent, I admit it.  I lament and moan and throw tissues on the floor like a big ol’ baby.  I sink into a pit of mucus-induced despair. (more…)