When you’re grieving, the season from Thanksgiving to Valentine’s Day can feel like running through a minefield. Each holiday brings new challenges to your inner fortitude. Each special day involves dodging awkward comments, leaning in to sorrow, pulling back to search for perspective. With Christmas just a few days away, I hope you’ve made plansContinue reading “Celebrating the Holidays with Grief”
Category Archives: Uncategorized
Poetry Friday: “Farewell”
Recently, my kids and I enjoyed a getaway respite at my sister’s home down on the farm. Moving in the midst of grief and pandemic is challenging, and we all needed a break. My sister’s acreage abuts farmland that is under conservation, preserved for generations to come just as it’s been farmed by generations before.Continue reading “Poetry Friday: “Farewell””
No One Told Me Marriage Was Like This
“We realize it’s not about what we get out of our marriage but about what we become in our marriage.” Gary Thomas, Sacred Marriage A year after we were married, Rob wrote a piece for MarriageTrac about our rocky adjustment to wedded life. He and I were both independent and more than a little stubborn;Continue reading “No One Told Me Marriage Was Like This”
Investing That Made Our Family Rejoice
In 2017, Rob accepted a position with Eventide Asset Management, a values based investing company in Boston, Massachusetts. Rob had profiled Eventide in 2014 while on the faith and business beat for Christianity Today, and Eventide’s philosophy of “investing that makes the world rejoice” captured his attention. In every work environment, in our home andContinue reading “Investing That Made Our Family Rejoice”
Poetry Friday: “A Better Resurrection”
What a week. I don’t know about you, but this past week has felt grueling. So many decisions, so much wrestling. I’m grateful it’s Friday. Of late, my heart has been chastened. Too often it takes coming to the end of myself before I recognize my need for Jesus. I wish it wasn’t that way.Continue reading “Poetry Friday: “A Better Resurrection””
The Bittersweetness of Adventure
Even though Rob only lived in our house for one year before he died, his fingerprints are all over it. We bought the house with the intention to work on it, and we started right away when we moved in. Two years later, I walk through the rooms and remember the walls we painted togetherContinue reading “The Bittersweetness of Adventure”
Poetry Friday: “Lament”
What do you do with a lifetime’s worth of possessions when the person who owned them is gone? It is normal within grief to keep everything, to give everything away, and anything in between. Physical reminders of a loved one can bring back happy memories; they can also provoke pain. In the end, things areContinue reading “Poetry Friday: “Lament””
Hidden in My Heart
As a child, I attended a small Christian school where weekly Bible memory verses were part of the curriculum. During my school years, I memorized hundreds of verses, all in the lyrical King James Version. Each year, memory verse assignments became increasingly long, so that by the time I was a senior in high school,Continue reading “Hidden in My Heart”
Eight Months: We Will Feast and Weep No More
I stand before the dishwasher unloading, steam still rising from the clean dishes, when she sneaks up beside me. Wrapped in her worn little baby blanket, my golden haired pixie reaches to unload the plastic cups and bowls from the top row as the song switches on my Spotify playlist. She begins to sing along,Continue reading “Eight Months: We Will Feast and Weep No More”
The Day Before the Day He Died
“What would you do if you knew you’d die tomorrow?” I’ve thought about this question a lot these last eight months. The day before Rob died, the kids and I met him for lunch at a local pizza shop in our old neighborhood. Even though we were on vacation, Rob was working that day, andContinue reading “The Day Before the Day He Died”