Grief and loss
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Goodbye to Mom’s house
“No matter how far we’ve come, our parents are always in us.” ~ Brad Meltzer Even after we’ve grown up and moved on, the homes of our parents still hold many of our family artifacts, memories, and stories. After your last parent dies, selling their home — and everything they accumulated — is a difficult part of the grieving process. Yet it can be therapeutic, too. As we begin to empty my mother-in-law’s home, I’m reminded of a column I wrote for The Sunday Oakland Press after reflecting on the memory of selling my mother’s home. You can read it online here. ~CL
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Those who comfort us
“Do not believe that the person who is trying to offer you solace lives his life effortlessly among the simple and quiet words that might occasionally comfort you. His life also is filled with much hardship and sadness….But if it were otherwise, he could never have found these words.” ~Rainer Maria Rilke in Letters on Life I’ve been thinking a lot about grief, loss, and comfort in recent weeks. My mother-in-law died Saturday in her home, just a couple of weeks short of her 94th birthday. She was the widowed matriarch and pillar of a large family, a strong-willed woman who outlived her initial diagnosis after a stroke last year. My husband…
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When you have to improvise
“Just because things hadn’t gone as I’d planned didn’t necessarily mean they’d gone wrong.” ~Ann Patchett When I was younger, I cringed at the old adage, “Everything happens for a reason.” It seemed like a sugar-coated excuse for rotten luck or bad choices. But the more I experienced life, the more I noticed that the most challenging/stressful events — like having surgery on both of my hips — turned out to be incredible periods of growth for me. There was something valuable to learn from every episode of pain and loss I’ve endured. Sometimes the recipes you follow in a cookbook don’t turn out well; sometimes you have to improvise.…
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When one door closes …
“When certain people walk away from you, or certain opportunities close their doors on you, there is no need to hold on….Take it as a direct indication that these people, circumstances, or opportunities are not part of the next chapter in your life. It’s a sign that your growth requires someone different or something more, and life is simply making room.” ~Marc & Angel Hack Life I’ve faced a lot of closed doors, having worked in journalism for 40 years. The internet has changed this business in countless ways, closing down (or shrinking) many favorite print publications that regularly published my work. Like so many of my fellow journalists, I’ve…
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When life feels too short
Yesterday I attended the visitation for a neighbor’s husband, a man whose life ended too soon following an illness. The funeral home was crowded with family, old neighbors and friends. Other neighbors who’d known Jim for decades — whose children grew up with his — had many good stories and memories to share. Sadly, I learned more about him after he died than I did when he lived a few blocks away from me. Isn’t that the way it often goes? We’ve had too much bad news in our wonderful neighborhood (and our world) lately. And if we’re not mindful, it’s easy to get pulled under by the long, slow…
