I had my own notion of grief. I thought it was a sad time that followed the death of someone you love. And you had to push through it to get to the other side. But I’m learning there is no other side. There is no pushing through. But rather, there is absorption. Adjustment. Acceptance. And grief is not something …

“Man never made any material as resilient as the human spirit.” – Bernard Williams Resilience: The capacity to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness. Five weeks. The amount of time she has been gone, leaving a gaping hole in our hearts, and what feels like a huge age gap between Liv, 9, and Keira, 4. The amount of time it took for …

Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. You wait and watch and work: you don’t give up. -Anne Lamott Too many “good” days in a row usually means a kink in the line and a breakdown to follow. The weekend was sunny …

To love someone fiercely, to believe in something with your whole heart, to celebrate a fleeting moment in time, to fully engage in a life that doesn’t come with guarantees- these are the risks that involve vulnerability and often pain…I’m learning that recognizing and leaning into the discomfort of vulnerability teaches us now to live with joy, gratitude, and grace. …

“A wife who loses a husband is called a widow. A husband who loses a wife is called a widower. A child who loses his parents is called an orphan. There is no word for a parent who loses a child. That’s how awful the loss is.” -Ronald Reagan There are many events I imagined planning for Lea when I …

There are times in life when the highest honor, the greatest love is paid to another by simply bearing witness to his or her experience. Bearing witness is largely nonverbal. It is the choice to give the gift of a pure expression of love and respect — being a compassionate observer to the unfolding of another person’s life or a …

Perhaps the butterfly is proof that you can go through a great deal of darkness yet still become something beautiful. It was even harder than I imagined it would be. It was the day I had been dreading since the told us of her diagnosis in August. It was the day they tell us that this is it. The monster …

Lea was curled up on our oversized khaki sofa, the place she had been for the majority of the past two weeks thanks to yet another unsuccessful steroid wean. Her head was nestled in my arm as two thick, black eyelashes sat on my index finger. You get two wishes Lea! One for each eyelash. I wish Pippi Longstockings was …

The wound is where the light enters you Rumi We have a table of family photos that sits behind the couch in our living room. Today I went in and noticed one photo had fallen over. I picked it up and my face softened as five faces smiled joyfully back at me. It was one of my all time favorite …

She never seemed shattered; to me, she was a breathtaking mosaic of the battles she’s won.  -Matt Baker One of my all time favorite photos of my “squad” popped up today as Lea was being sedated for her fifth MRI in six months. A lot can change in a year I thought to myself as I sat in the same …