Theo has been sick for several days and spent quite a bit of time in the master bedroom, watching tv. Everything was fairly low key with his illness, until he said the words “Mommy, I barfed.” He held his arms away from his body, indicating his now-soiled clothes. And I needed to strip the bed. Continue reading
Two years ago, four pumpkins sat outside of our house. Four were round, smooth, and orange. Two were a bluish color and lumpy. We had lost Nelle at the onset of Fall that year. It wasn’t intentional, but I looked at those pumpkins and thought “Six. Four living people. One blue pumpkin for Nelle. And one blue pumpkin for our next baby.” Of course, I had no way of knowing at that time that we would lose our next baby too. Now I think back to the pumpkins that year and think: Six. Four living. Two dead. Continue reading
I was taking a bath when I heard the crash from the master bedroom. “Quentin? What happened?” Pause. “Something fell,” was the response. He came in the bathroom with tears in his eyes. “Something fell on my head.” Continue reading
There is a small white box in my closet. It held Iris’s ashes before we scattered then. I don’t need the box; it was only a delivery mechanism, a transportation method to her final resting place. I did not keep Nelle’s box. But I have been unable to throw away Iris’s box. It is one of the few things I have. Continue reading
Anne Lamott often recounts words that a priest said to her once: “Sometimes Heaven is just a new pair of glasses.” A change in perspective.
How many words and phrases flow easily from the lips of our culture when it comes to death and dying? All of which are fairly presumptuous that those on the receiving end share the beliefs. Words so much more easily given than received. Or comforting only to the giver: a singular perspective. Continue reading
