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Over the last ten days of my mother’s life, my brother, my sister, her husband, her son and I had holed up in my sister’s home. The house took on the smell of four able-bodied adults and a toddler on top of each other for 240 straight hours, living. We stood vigil over our dying mother, waiting. **** When my parents were dating, there were clues about my father’s abusive […]

I remember a Facebook post several years ago by Eileen Workman that said, and I paraphrase, “Hospice is required to attend to that which is dying.” I am awake at 3:30, praying, reflecting, sending energy to all the world. There is so much grief and loss. Loss of a nation we were proud to identify with, despite her many moral shortcomings. Loss of civility, decency, and human connection. Loss of […]

Ache. Every time an image of your son floats across your mind, feel the dark hole that opens up next to your heart. Experience the new knowledge that “heartache” is not just a metaphor, but a physical condition of the deepest kind. Recall how you carried this boy in your womb. Now you carry his absence, from your belly through your chest, and into your heart. A black void that […]