Posts tagged “grief

Trips Around the Sun

Posted on May 7, 2017

Time reveals a lot, it shows us how where we thought we were going and where we end up can be blessedly out of synch, it tells us more about ourselves, and it also uncovers who really matters. I’ve made plenty of mistakes with who I have chosen to trust, who I have doubted, and how much I’ve given. I wish I could say that it’s been an internal revelation or decision that has set me straight, that somehow I have had the instinct to ferret out the truth from the lies.  Nope. Good old fashioned before and after has done that, with a bit of help from forgotten texts and someone telling the truth. There are things in my life I would take back—don’t…

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From the Lake’s Howls Come Spring

Posted on April 19, 2017

    The first time I heard the lake moan I didn’t know what I was hearing, I imagined a pack of wolves high on the ridge keening. It sounded at once mournful and foreboding. The 9-year-old me pressing hard against 42-year-old me, was all nerves and excitement, “Is it howling?” “It’s the lake,” Sean said with a smile. “Isn’t that wild?” “The lake? The lake is making that sound?” He nodded and held his hand out to me. We walked out on the porch, “Listen.” I turned my body and tilted my ear toward the lake. The sound started on the far side of the lake as a kind of warble that bled into a groan which went on for a full minute. I…

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Prayer for King

Posted on January 19, 2015

I worshipped my grandfather. At first it was the way he looked at me with unabashed delight, later it was for the way his skin creased like a blanket, and whiskers grew, but never hurt my face when he kissed me. Later still it was the careful consideration he gave any topic I asked about—homosexuality, abortion, racism. He listened to me in ways that other adults didn’t. He sent me sermons and passages from scripture, offering religion-based support for my positions or, if not that, then examples of how the Bible did not support the opposing view. Several times a year I search his name, sometimes with a key word, other times not. I take solace in knowing that so much of his teaching and writing…

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On Losing a Pet & Loving Again

Posted on November 12, 2014

I didn’t know when, or how, but I knew the day would come when the need to fill the hole left by Mae, our amazing kitten. The girls are sensitive and intelligent, often comprehending things in ways that I almost wish that they wouldn’t at their age. Along with the dolls and karate classes, I wish that I could offer some measure of oblivion to pad their all too brief childhoods. Mae’s death blew the doors off the idea of having anything more than a suggestion in the grand scheme of how life goes. I tried to do things in the days and weeks that followed her  abrupt passing to carve out special time to try new things with the girls. As we passed the year mark of when we…

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HerStories—Leaving & Losing Friends

Posted on September 24, 2014

I remember a friendship break-up from my childhood. We met in the late 70s when my family moved onto a dead-end street. We were the only girls on the block and became fast friends. We enjoyed a fairly long leash that allowed for hours of playing outside. We did it all, from pretending we were roller-skating gymnasts to racing super balls in the gutters with Star War figurines tied to twig rafts. It was in seventh grade that things began to fall apart—new friends, different interests. I was a late bloomer, though I didn’t know it then. As the era of boys standing in corners and girls fluttering back and forth in front of them descended, I lingered near the black top courts during recess, clinging to the time when we all…

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