The AfterLoss Blog

Small occurrences, chance occasions, words spoken in passing loom large in my sifting through loss. It is not the big events that pass before me now. What I thought would be memorable moments subside. I seem to gravitate to the serendipitous scenes of simplicity. The mere sound of their voices leaves me in warm longing. The reading of a bedtime book brightens today with its still glowing embers. Her glance across a crowded room and the undertone of knowing rests within my remembrance. read more…

I grew older, but they did not. I continued to gather experiences, but the memory of them brought our today to an end. All three of their deaths happened over twenty years ago. The moment they died, moment changed. Matt took his last breath at the age of 13. He would be 33. read more…

So I have had to find a way to live in the unknown. I once had this idea that if I could make sense of my losses I would be able to find peace. If I could only understand why all this was happening, or figure out what I had done, or even what was being done, I could then close the uncertainty and reconcile the insanity of it all.  read more…

I am in another phase of going deeper into life. There is so much I have had to leave behind. I cannot carry all that was into where I need to go. Some parts of my past have to find peace there. Other parts that have found peace must come with me into the layers that lie before me. What do I leave? What do I take? Why do I hold on to this and let go of that? read more…

I just want the world to go away, for my world had gone away. Nothing was the same, but I was sitting in the same house, the same chair, hearing the same sounds. The real became the surreal. I became the surreal. And I needed to be by myself, for self had changed. Hours emptied into eternity. Days went by. Still, I wanted to be alone. read more…

I read your words from a distance and they land deep within me. I do not know the sound of your voice, but I know the sound of your sorrow. We echo across a torn land with the anguish of torn lives. You have lost someone dear and I know the dearness of loss. I cry alone into a pillow and you catch the tears in this far off land. read more…

I don’t know, but I know loss colors everything. Loss shades every aspect of my life. I live a kaleidoscope of moments and in each one there are the shifting colors laced in loss. A beautiful sunset paints the sky and somewhere in the majesty there is that part of me that leaves traces of loss on the landscape. read more…

She would have been a lot of things, but she isn’t. The one thing she is is she’s not forgotten. This week I have been out of sorts, a little off center. Things have been just a little out of focus. I have had a low-grade anxiety that something is off kilter. These are all symptoms of birthdays and death days. The week before is a time of reflection. Today is a time of gratitude for the person Lydia was. read more…

How do I hold on to love and let go of the pain? Is it possible to separate the two? I hold a photograph and it takes me to a place of deep warmth in memory. I remember the moment with tenderness, with gratitude, with love. Looking up from the photo, I am here. The journey to another moment leaves and I am abandoned to this moment. And the distance between memory and moment hurts. read more…

The missing parts of me have gone missing. Hopes and dreams have disappeared. I wanted so much for them. I had not realized how much more I wanted for me, too. When they say life goes on I take it to mean graduations will take place and my children won’t be there. Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, any day arrives and others celebrate their loved one’s presence and I miss holding the ones I love. Children will be born, but not to my children. Seasons will come, but not to us, only me. read more…

I used to think grief had a destination. There was a place in the distance where everything was going to be okay. The past would heal. Life would return to “normal.” Somewhere out there everything was going to be okay. read more…

Since this is a time of remembrance and a time of celebrating the honor of being a father, I can think of nothing more appropriate than to share than the prologue from the book I wrote called Out of the Ashes: Healing in the Afterloss, which has so much to do with what we went through and what my children gave me.
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Initially in loss, the people around us gather. Then time is up and the people scatter, going back to their lives, leaving the one in loss to wander their sorrow looking for where the old life went. It appears to be a timing thing. I heard the unspoken rule of grief’s mores. The world will comfort me for a certain amount of time. When this invisible timer goes off, we are finished. I could speak of my losses for a certain period and then some underlying message in conversation said, “Let’s talk about something else.” Nothing overt needed to be said. read more…

How deep does pain go? Is there a limit to the expanse of my hurt? How much pain can someone take, and then, what takes over? Sorrow sometimes seems endless. I have not found a way to navigate around the emotional weight of loss in the doing of a day. I am unable to circumnavigate a thought, a memory, or an emotion. Pain comes as it comes and as much as I want to push it away there is no “away” to push it to. read more…

Loss was changing me, but it felt like I was drifting away from everything I once was. When I went to Hawaii many years ago I was warned about kayaking alone. He said every now and then the currents change and it takes a kayak out beyond the island. The kayaker irretrievably drifts out to sea. read more…

There is a residue that resides within me. Memory that has yet to find its way into my past. What I went through is still going through me. read more…

It lives in the subterranean world of secret sorrow. While those around me were getting “over it” I was just getting “into it.” There is a difference between grieving in solitude or solitary confinement. Invisible bars surrounded me. I couldn’t get out in my solitary confinement and no one could reach me in my solitude. read more…

Technically, the term “walkabout” is what the Australian Aborigines youth do as a right of passage. They spend six months immersed in their lineage on a spiritual quest. I use the term walkabout as what I do in my wanderings in the Afterloss. It is a wandering through the landscape of a life now lived in the context of loss and the deepening of love. read more…

He did not live to see his first year, but I honor every year on the very first day I held him and the first day he held me. Our dance was so brief, but our song continues. He lived on this earth for eight and a half months and lives in me every day. read more…

In the initial shock, I went into remote control just doing the next thing. Holding my child. Making the call to my brother. Calling the hospice nurse. Holding my child. Calling his grandparents. Calling the funeral director. Holding my child. read more…