Originally posted at Still Standing Magazine On August 22nd at 2:00am I tucked three of my four youngest children in bed, watched my teenagers close their bedroom doors, and walked into an empty bedroom where a little boy should have been sound asleep, but his body was in a hospital morgue. I walked to my… Continue reading Still Standing After Two Years
As I flip the calendar each year to August, my stomach drops. Mattie died on August 21, 2014. School started the next week, though our lives did not carry on as normal. So for the past two years, the back to school swirl is a bit muddled for me. It is muddled with memories of… Continue reading Back to School and the Grieving Heart
I’ve begun writing for Crazy Good Grief as part of my partnership with Paula Stephens. This post was originally published on the CGG blog. I remember the day I clicked on the link to an article on grief that I saw in my Facebook feed. I was raw in grief, deep in the thick of… Continue reading The Goodness of Grief
A few weeks ago my friend Paula and I began a conversation about what it would like for us to partner together to continue the great healing work of “Crazy Good Grief.” Conversations led into brainstorming led into a collaboration of hearts. So here we are, and I’m not gonna lie, I have a few… Continue reading Inspired Healing: new steps for me
I pulled this shirt from my drawer and it smelled of him. Impossible. Months later, washed and worn, And now suddenly, his smell. I put it on. I breathed in the scent of him. So much has changed. I didn’t expect to feel so weak, so broken, I didn’t expect to lose so much of… Continue reading Unexpected
They stitched your broken heart together, And for a long time, it beat within you, Pumping life and joy through your veins. And then when it stopped, Mine stopped too. And yet slowly I am learning, To pick up the needle and thread, And stitch by stitch, Sew my own broken heart back together as… Continue reading Heart Stitches
We are storytellers. Every single one of us. We live and our lives tell the story. As we breathe in and breathe out, the story line is woven. We are the hero, the villain, the explorer, the adversary, the captive, and the rescuer all in one. We make choices and sentences are written in this book… Continue reading When the Pen Drops
Shortly after Mattie was born, I met Shannon and her sweet boy Ethan. Our boys walked a very similar road. It was uncanny. Miles apart and never having met in “real life”, we Mommas fought for our boys. We celebrated milestones. We prayed when disaster struck. Shortly after Mattie died, I went to message her,… Continue reading You Were My Tomorrow (guest post by Shannon Shpak)
I’m so honored to have linked arms with 72 writers at Scribbles and Crumbs who have joined together to share their stories ON COMING ALIVE, here’s the piece that I shared: I’ll never forget seeing this line in Mattie’s obituary, “He is survived by father, John, mother, Tracie, brother and sister-in-law, Nick and Amy, brothers,… Continue reading Survived
“Be still and know that I am God. Be still and know that I am. Be still and know. Be still. Be.” – Saint Patrick Saint Patrick expands, or perhaps simplifies, this thought from Psalm 46. The power of learning to be still, which is at its very essence, simply learning to “be”. I don’t know… Continue reading Be Still and Know
From the Heart 