I was sitting at my desk on a Monday morning, calmly reviewing my inbox of emails, when I heard a yell and a sharp crack outside.  I raised my eyes to look out the window in time to see a huge pine tree – we’re talking at least 70 feet tall – fall from my neighbor’s property through the air and, landing with a thud, sprawl its green branches across the street. (more…)

I have a tiger cat who lounges on the floor of my office or purrs in my lap when I write.  She has the most gorgeous markings:  black stripes on tawny fur, sand colored chin, pale emerald eyes.  As a kitten, she was taken from the wild, prematurely separated from her feral mother.  Her occasional skittishness tells me that she carries her early loss with her like a permanent scar. (more…)

My ex-husband recently took my three children on an amazing, once-in-a-lifetime trip to Africa – a wildlife safari in Tanzania.  (How come he never suggested a trip like that when I was married to him?  Oh well . . . I digress . . . ) My 16 year old kept an extremely detailed journal so that she would be able to record and remember every detail.   She allowed me to read it so that I could get a feel for her trip.  So I was sitting next to her, reading, commenting every few pages “Did you really see a baby giraffe with an umbilical cord still attached to its mother?”  “Did a wild zebra really come right up to your tent porch?” when she burst into tears.  “Stop reminding me . . . I miss it so much!” she sobbed.  “Oh honey,” I exclaimed, “You’ve got a case of the post-vacation blues.” (more…)

I remember once, many years ago, a middle-aged woman who came up to me after I gave a talk on grief at a local church.  I had been describing how painful it can be to lose someone you love, how disorienting and crushing — after the talk, she said, “Everything you just described is how I feel about my daughter growing from a sweet little girl into a teenager.  She’s still alive but I feel a loss.  My sweet girl is gone.”  At the time, I knew what she meant intellectually though I had not experienced it personally.  Why, my little girls were still adorable and adoring and I could never imagine that they would change.  HA!  (more…)