I See What You Meme

It's been a while since I used the blog to share my thoughts. What started as some random musings turned into much more than a Facebook post. I started writing this over a week ago but it's taken a minute to actually hit the publish button. Thanks for your patience. Welcome back.   It has been a week (or two) . One of those weeks where everything happens all at once. A week where things need to happen in a particular order or everything‘s going to go to shit. A week where you just seem to go from one thing to the next thing and you’ll figure out what’s going to happen next as it goes along. A week full of work and family and rest and sleeplessness and it never feels like there’s enough time for anything. But somehow it all works out.   A plaque on the library walk in NYC My week started with a trip for work to NYC. It coincided with my birthday. Because of that, I had all kinds of feelings all week about life in general. The week ended with a trip to Florida that, unfortun...

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...

If the last few years have taught us anything, it is that life is complicated and challenging in many ways. Most days, I'm exhausted. Are you exhausted?  During the early part of 2022, though, I had the chance to read three books that really helped me frame my frustration, angst, and anxiety about the world.  All of these books are recently published, based on solid research, and approach their subjects in a way that makes them understandable and relatable to everyone. If you read even one of these books, I guarantee that you will learn things, gain perspective about the world, and discover insights about yourself and your humanity. Each book also touches on the role the COVID-19 pandemic has had on our lives and on our society so they are certainly timely.  I will share my individual reviews for each book that I published on my Goodreads profile. If you have read any of these books recently, would love to hear your thoughts as well!  Atlas of the Heart by Brene Bro...

Welcome to a new year, although as many have noted, 2022 just seems to be starting like a variation on the past two years in so many ways (I almost used the word variant. That seems a little *too* on the nose) . Collectively, I think we are all tired. We are drained. We are exhausted. I admire anyone who feels renewed and reflective right now because (gosh darn it) the last two years have been something else.  Somewhere in the last week of 2021, the #10yearchallenge started popping up on social media. I'm not sure who started it or why it surfaced again. I remember this came up as 2019 turned over into 2020, which made sense. The turning of the decade and that nice round number always gives us something to cling to in a nostalgic way.  Did this one start as a bit of fun as people started confining themselves in quarantine instead of roaming off to New Year celebrations? Or is there something more nefarious  involved with the trending meme?  Who knows!? Either w...

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 ...

I was sitting in a doctor's office waiting room a few weeks ago. While I waited, another patient came out into the reception area to make her next appointment. The receptionist offered a few dates, including one on a Saturday. The woman (I have no idea who she was; let's call her Maude) originally said yes to the Saturday date. Then the following conversation ensued:  Maude: Wait! Is that Mother's Day weekend?  Receptionist: Hmm. You know what? I'm not sure. When is Mother's Day?  Maude: You don't know?  Receptionist: (nervous laugh) Well, I guess I should know this.... Maude: Are you a mother?  Receptionist: No.  Maude: But...you have a mother, right? You should know these things!  At this point, I was incensed with "Maude". This woman knew nothing about the receptionist. She could have recently lost a child. She could have been struggling with infertility. She could have had a mother who recently died. Or she could have a strained or just very compli...