By Today marks six years since my mom died and the world became a little less bright. Every year, on her birth and death days, I do my best to honor her in one way or many. When I walked into work today, the music playing was all her favorites: Elton
Paper Clothes: Trigger to Talisman
Four years ago yesterday, my family and I stood in an Arkansas ICU hospital room where my brother fought for his life. On the way back from burying my mother in a Tennessee graveyard, my brother and his wife were rear-ended by two semis while sitting in traffic behind another
THE Announcement – My Mom’s View
ANNOUNCEMENT (Please read, then watch the video): Nine years ago, I started a project that became transformational then seminal: Over the summer of 2007, at 37 years old, I finally came of age via doing 22 things I’d never done, like getting drunk, going dancing, getting a tattoo, and smoking
Happy Birthday, Mom
Dear Mom, Happy Birthday, mamadear, on what would have been your 69th. I’m sitting here about to watch an Agatha Christie movie, whom you loved, eating beets then pecan shortbread, which you loved (as do I), end-of-week tired from work you would have been so happy to know I was
A Story of My Mother’s Last Gifts, at The Story Project – TONIGHT
A little over two years ago, I told a story from the summer I wrote The Oat Project for a program here in Colorado Springs called The Story Project. Like The Moth Radio Hour out of New York City, it’s live, local storytelling without a script. Tonight, on this Mother’s
Divergent? Or Derailed?
What do you do when you fall short of a goal? How do you Define it? Is it a Divergence? Or a Derailing? Are you more motivated with humongous, “unrealistic” goals? Or small steps? I am slowly figuring out how I work best. I keep thinking that making big goals
My Mother’s Words to Me, Through Me
The last week or two, a sort of time warp has wrapped every moment in as intense a grief and dark a depression as just after my mother and sister-in-law died a year and two months ago. It’s as though some parts of my mind and body have moved through
Lists and Christmas: The One Thing I Want for Christmas
My childhood Christmas lists were a work of art. Crafted from hours with my nose in the Sears catalog, the key at the top was essential. Need Very Badly = NVB. Need = N. Want = W. Want Very Much = WVM. Each item (often topping 100) was coded, with its
Death, Meaning, and a Chest Cold: Gratitude
I keep trying to make meaning with words on this day, but they aren’t coming out properly yet. One year ago today, my family and I buried my mom in Tennessee, on the same hill as her father and family. It was a year ago date-wise, but day-of-the-week-wise, which is
The Layers of Funeral Day
A year ago today, my family and I, with 200+ folks, honored my mother’s life, celebrating her beautiful spirit at her funeral. She died on December 4th, 2012. This past week has been intense, sortof a dual living, split in time between now and a year ago, like it’s layered,
