View of “Le Canigou” – the Pyrenees’ highest mountain – from my parents’ house, after a summer storm 3 August 2020 We have been on holiday now for a “fat” week. “We” is Megan, Ben, Medjool and me. A “fat” week is 10 days. The first 7 days were spent in the Camargue, a beautifully […]
Child Loss
Wrapping Loss in Love
Photo by Karim MANJRA on Unsplash I spend a lot of my time reading about death, dying, and grieving, participating in webinars and holding space sessions with grief experts, people who’ve developed wise perspective on what it is to love, to lose, and to continue living. Apart from two moments since Mike’s death, I have […]
Post Mortem – a year on
This past week we have been honouring and commemorating Julia. (And Mike. And Ed. And Don. Of course). Like we do every day. Of course. But particularly Julia this week. The first “deathiversary”. The first anniversary post mortem. I don’t really know why the one-year anniversary feels like such a rite of passage. It’s not […]
Right Down to the Weather
Main Photo by Marc Wieland on Unsplash So there we have it. Here we are again. Time has rolled around. As it is wont to do. Dates might not have, but the sense, the weight of that Sunday night 52 weeks ago, most definitely has. A hot day in our part of the world with […]
Incongruities of a Summer’s Day
Just like I always feel a twinge of glee on 21st December (we have reached the shortest and darkest 24-hour period in the Northern Hemisphere – yippee!), I also feel a twinge of sadness on 21st June when we have reached the longest, lightest day. There’s a clear message there about not living in the […]
Rewriting Friendship Contracts
Photo by Jude Beck on Unsplash I had one of those rollicking walloping moments of insight a few days ago after what had been months of sporadic back and forth Whatsapping with a lovely friend, (let’s call her Catherine), who I met decades ago at university. We were really close in those years and stayed […]
Don’t Rush Me – It’s not just me – it’s you too
Photo by Andrew Buchanan on Unsplash “One of the big things I talk about in the grief world is how other people want to rush grief. They want the old you back, they want things to go back to “normal,” they’ve grown impatient with the way grief lives in you. All that cheerleading and cheering up has, at […]
New Love in the Time of COVID-19
Main image courtesy of Ruben Rojas, Street Artist, in Los Angeles How does a new relationship, even one that truly feels right, profound, rich, loving… how does it survive, how can it survive, in the time of COVID-19? How can Zoom sessions, WhatsApp calls and texts, photos, and even the occasional letter, be a substitute […]
Multiple Versions of Mother’s Day
Today, as I write, Sunday 10th May 2020, it is Mother’s Day in North America. And, closer to home, in Switzerland too. The day during which, in former times, people congratulate mothers on being mothers. People bring their mums flowers, make them a meal, take them out for a meal. Or just call them and […]
Threadbare
Image by Nick Fewings on Unsplash I am in a hard place. A fragile space. Hard and fragile. That sounds like “brittle”. That works too. The six weeks of “hard and fast and furious dates” between 27th March and 2nd May are finally over, culminating in Ben’s 21st birthday yesterday. I so wish he’d had his dad […]
Bittersweet
Photo by Bannon Morrissy on Unsplash 24 April 2020 More stories of dates. And Dates. Sometimes I count a year as 52 weeks. Sometimes I count a year as 365 days. Or 366 days as the case may be. Sometimes I remember the day something happened. Sometimes the date is more important. And sometimes the Date. It’s […]
Messages from Mike
There seems to come a time in life for those of us who do not grow up with formal religion – and perhaps it’s triggered by loss and hardship, perhaps by age – where we search for meaning in losses and in life, and messages or clues that there might be something before and after […]