Parenting Through Grief

Hello Darkness, My Old Friend

My daughter is 18 today. She was my first baby – my first experience feeling totally unprepared and incompetent. My husband and I were young – 23 and 21 – and it was trial by fire. Her first week at home was spent wrapped in a glowing blanket to ward off jaundice. She lost the…

Sometimes You’ve Got to Have Frozen Pizza for Dinner

We had frozen pizza for dinner last night. It wasn’t that I couldn’t have cooked something better. My work was done by 5:30pm, and we didn’t have anywhere to be in the evening. I wasn’t particularly tired, and the kids weren’t being all that bad. Yet, I wasn’t feeling it. It’s too bad because I…

Meeting Our Kids Where They Are

Tom and I used to have this thing we called “front porching” – as in, want to go front porching tonight? Those were pretty wild and crazy times in our marriage, I tell ya. At least a couple times a week, when the Michigan weather allowed, we would grab a drink and head out to,…

Summer: It’s a Wrap

Blink and you miss it. That seems to be how every summer goes. We start the season staring out at months of seemingly endless days and long nights. We envision day trips to the beach or the pool and evenings spent around the campfire. The reality is always different than the fantasy though. Am I…

People Say They Want to Help. They Won’t.

That’s right. Plenty of folks say they want to help, but they never will. That’s not a knock on those people. It’s just reality – a reality I think every widow (or really, any person facing tragedy) should prepare for. Because if you don’t, you may find you’ve set yourself up for deep disappointment. When…

Where are all the men?

Where are all the good men? Shortly after my husband died, one of my favorite blogs posted an article about the importance of fathers. It was beautifully written and was chockful of statistics about how active and engaged fathers increase good outcomes and decrease negative ones in children. It left me feeling entirely defeated. In…