If you're ever in need of an escape to reset your head and find a little bit of peace in the chaos that swirls around you, I highly recommend Thailand. I have lots of stories and photos to share about the elephants I met, but today I have a different story to tell. Although not quite intentional, when I planned this trip I realized I was returning the day before my son's tenth birthday, which is also the one year anniversary of my mother's death. To spend the two weeks leading up to it in a ... Read more »
mom
Life is Short. Buy the Boots.
If grief were a color, it would be slate. Not an angry obsidian black, or a peaceful dove grey, but that shapeshifting silver somewhere between black and white, a stormy sea that some days seems blue, others almost brackish, depthless and impossible to truly describe. If it were a shape, it would be a spiral, a shape you ride on in a neverending loop of centrifugal force splattering you against the wall whether you will it or not, bringing you back again and again to the same spot, from a ... Read more »
California’s End of Life Option Act and How it Would have Changed Mom’s Death
In 2014, a young, vibrant woman named Brittany Maynard moved from the home in California she had known all her life so that she could die on her own terms in Oregon. Diagnosed with glioblastoma, arguably one of the most monstrous forms of cancer in this world, Maynard was willing to uproot her life, put her face out into the world, and share a most intimate decision with a universe of strangers in order to help people understand why someone might make the decision to hasten their death. With ... Read more »
Grief is a hot potato
Ever since I started this blog, and even moreso since writing All Dogs Go to Kevin, people write to tell me about their pets who are no longer with them. They used to apologize for writing, or say they weren't even sure why they were telling me about their pet, but most people don't do that anymore. I think they know that they don't need to explain. As followers of the blog know, I love birthdays. Birthdays are fun, and I love love love that my birthday coincides with National Dog Day. I ... Read more »
Painting the Roses Red
It's pub day! The book is out at long last! I really hope you all enjoy it- All Dogs Go to Kevin has truly been a labor of love. (That link goes to my new website. Did I mention I have a new website? It's been so busy around here I think I forgot.) Last weekend I went to Warwicks to sign the preordered books. Brian and the kids were at ComicCon, so I went to Warwicks by myself. It was a short task, no more than 20 minutes, so I couldn't figure out why I was so bummed about going alone, and ... Read more »
The calm before the storm
Oh my goodness. One week from tomorrow and it's going to be one of the most important days of my life: right up there with graduating, getting married, having my kids. I will be an official published author. Aieeee! I dreamed of this long before I thought about going to veterinary school, back when I was seven and I pulled every book off my shelf and artfully arranged them around the house playing bookstore ( Or was it library?) When I sat under the kitchen counter reading National ... Read more »
Profound Things
I wrote my mother's eulogy the day of the service, this Sunday. I was stuck. I wanted to share all the profound things we had said to one another over the years, but we just didn't have that kind of relationship defined by meaningful, deep philosophical conversations. As I sat with Brody's head in my lap, it occurred to me that we also did not share in deep conversations, but it never lessened our bond. As soon as I thought about that, it all started to come. My mother was not one for ... Read more »
Just keep swimming
Has it already been a week since my mother died? I feel like I've been in a haze, dropped in the middle of the ocean and swimming only because I have to, not because I actually know where I'm going. I've found a new appreciation for Dory, a different nuance in Finding Nemo. I don't know why life insists on dumping everything on us all at once instead of pacing things one month at a time, but it seems to be a rather consistent theme. What I'd like to be doing right now is sitting in bed with ... Read more »
Brain Food
Did you know tomorrow is National Donut Day? Donuts have always held a special place in my family's heart. Mystical, you might even say. I grew up in New England, where Dunkin Donuts are as ubiquitous as Starbucks and McDonalds. Driving through for a box of Munchkins was our way of celebrating, commiserating, or simply getting a sugar fix. For my grandfather, the Dunk was also a neighborhood gathering place where he went to shoot the breeze, down a jelly donut with a coffee regular (it's a ... Read more »
The 5 Gratitudes and the Very Important Question
Today marks five weeks since my mother's diagnosis with aggressive Grade IV glioblastoma, five weeks since my family's lackadaisical spring was hit by a grenade that launched us into the surreal world of watching someone next to you on the beach suddenly snatched away by a rogue wave and pulled, slowly but inexorably, off by a receding tide. I thought I would be much more angry than I am, angry at the unfairness of a universe that takes her in such a cruel manner while it leaves behind the ... Read more »
