Follow Friday: Notable and Newsworthy

So it’s been a busy week in terms of news. Everyone is still reeling from the May 1^st headlines so in case you’ve been suffering from a mediasphere hangover, I’d like to share a few key news stories that you may have missed:

Florida does it again. It seems that the Florida legislature may have inadvertently made sex illegal. Oh, Florida….what are we going to do with you? You can’t manage the 2000 election. You lead the country in bank foreclosures and your government is facing a shortfall of over $3 billion. You’re not even really part of “The South.” Maybe we should give Puerto Rico a turn. Or sell the whole state to Disney World.

Meanwhile, while we’re all still giddily euphoric over the Royal Wedding, we were slammed with the news that a branch of America’s royal family has been pruned. Arnold Schwarzenneger is no longer a Kennedy. Maybe it’s all part of the Governator’s plan to be the next Bruce Wayne. Maybe Maria feels the need to search for an eligible bachelor politician who might actually be able to serve as president of the United States. Whatever the reason, thank goodness we have the birth of Mariah Carey’s twins to distract us.

With news like this, it’s enough to think that the world might just be coming to an end. May 21, 2011? October 21, 2011? December 21, 2012? Nobody is really sure of the truth. Well, some people seem pretty sure of the truth. I personally liked the Huffington Post’s 21 reasons why May 21 is not the end of the world. I guess we’ll know for sure in a few days.

Might just be one more Follow Friday left. Get it while it lasts!

The Edge of Seventeen

It's that time of year when the blog musings center on my grief journey. Every year, it seems like we are busy with end-of-the-year school activities and the start of summer, planning vacations, and then (kablam)...it's almost July 9. Grief is funny. Grief is weird. I remember very early after Charlotte died, I watched the movie Rabbit Hole. There's an amazingly poignant scene where Nicole Kidman's character is talking with another woman who lost a child over 10 years before (played by Dianne Wiest). She talks about grief being like a brick in your pocket. It never goes away. Sometimes you can even forget it's there. But it comes back and makes its presence known from time to time. And (she says) "it's what you have of them." I probably did not fully realize then what a powerful and true analogy that is. As time goes on, our grief changes. Yet, it is always there on the edge of things. It sits in that pocket and sometimes makes itself known. This

Bittersweet Sixteen

I think about Charlotte every single day. However, this time of year, I'm flooded with all kinds of memories as we commemorate the anniversary of her birth. This year feels like a bit of a milestone. Sixteen. If cancer had not taken her life back in 2010, I have a feeling I would be planning a massive birthday celebration this year. 16 always feels like a landmark year in someone's life. I have been thinking a great deal about the last birthday party we had for Charlotte in 2009. We didn't know it at the time, but we were halfway through her treatment journey. We had been through three major brain surgeries and a few rounds of inpatient chemotherapy. Treatments were not going well. In fact, right after her birthday, we would make the trip to Houston, Texas where we would settle in for about 10 weeks of proton beam radiation treatments and a new customized chemotherapy protocol. This was the unspoken "last chance option" to beat that aggressive brain tumor into

Tis the Season for Leaks

Now that we've had a few posts to settle in with one another, let's get personal, shall we? It's almost an understatement to say that this has been a difficult year. The last few weeks, especially, brought back a flood of memories. This time last year, we were in the home stretch . We were watching our daughter die. I have spent the weeks since Thanksgiving thinking of our final days with her. I miss her terribly. I miss her laugh and her smile and her stories. I cry a lot. This is going to sound funny but I don't cry the way I used too. In the past, if I got upset, you would KNOW that I was upset. Now, it just kind of leaks out. I'll be sitting somewhere: waiting in line at the store, working, driving in my car....and the tears just start to flow. I don't even necessarily "break down" and sob. I just leak. Anything can trigger the leak. Usually it's a memory of Charlotte. Sometimes I'm reminded of a child or a family i

I See What You Meme

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