I hope my stories and insights can become a presence that sits beside you. Please feel me next to you in this new space we both inhabit. We can share the weight of this now. 

 

I lost my spouse of almost 20 years in January of 2023. His death was sudden and unexpected. A year and a half prior, I sat by my father’s bedside as he took his last breath while I held his hand. His death was slower and somewhat expected. Many years before that, I experienced the beautiful hope of pregnancies that didn’t come to fruition. I am now blessed with the three children I was meant to have. 

 

Grief has become a ladybug that attaches itself to my clothes. She is beautiful, and she is fragile, and you want her to fly, and you want her to stay. Loss has peeled back the layers of my reflection; it has made me insecure, it has made me strong, it has made me question what in the hell I am doing almost every single day. Losing what I have will always be the part of me that gently nudges me to keep on living. It is a graceful, quiet irony.

 

We live for those who had this choice taken away from them. Join me, and let’s make this journey the best that we can. Together.