I was 16 when I lost the first person of great personal relevance to me - alright, it was Kurt Cobain and I was under the influence of great angst and the grunge movement - true, I had experienced the loss of my grandparents prior to Kurt's suicide, but those deaths were easier to reconcile with the natural course of life and the truth of mortality. Kurt's death was different, it was very personal to me and, combined with natural 16 year old self-involvement, directed me into a major period of… Continue

It keeps occurring to me, in a beat me over the head and smack me in the face kind of way, the total disparity between the almost instantaneous way in which I verbally began to refer to my mother in the past tense while on the other hand my mind, my imagination, my thoughts continue to function as though my mother was still present in my day-to-day life. Of course I'm struck by this often because my mother is pretty much all I think about these days.



So, what is the deal? Is it two… Continue

For me grief has been something like this; you know when you're in an airplane or at a loud concert or club and your ears plug up so that everything outside of your own thoughts is muffled and garbled and ultimately it becomes too much effort to attempt to focus on anything outside yourself (maybe that part is just me - I'm both lazy and self absorbed)?



Then suddenly, out of the blue, your ears pop and unplug and you are hyper-sensitive to the slightest sound?



So I was all… Continue

I am at the point these last few days where I can rationally work through the reality that my mother is gone.



When I focus on that idea I can work it through to it's logical end and accept that all we have are our memories of Her. Luckily for us those memories are so full of Her incredible, indestructible spirit that they will not easily be lost.



And then I lie in bed and close my eyes.



That's when the instinctual part of my brain makes itself heard and… Continue

After being awake for a few hours today I suddenly thought, huh! I haven't thought about Mom once yet today. I almost began to panic (if you'll recall the grief I alluded to experiencing yesterday) but I almost suddenly realized that I was wrong.



The thing is, I hadn't experienced any of the sudden, overwhelming, excruciating memories of my mother that has the power to contort my body, mind, my spirit and leave me huddled on the floor curled into myself and trying to ward off the… Continue

I find myself focusing very hard on stemming the random flow of tears these days; not out of any sense of crying as weakness or a need to put up any kind of front of strength. I am perfectly comfortable feeling weak and giving in to said weakness, either while I'm alone or surrounded by any number of relative strangers.



Ask anyone who knows me, they'll tell you that I am capable of bursting into tears while describing an especially moving long distance commercial.



These… Continue

I find myself focusing very hard on stemming the random flow of tears these days; not out of any sense of crying as weakness or a need to put up any kind of front of strength. I am perfectly comfortable feeling weak and giving in to said weakness, either while I'm alone or surrounded by any number of relative strangers.



Ask anyone who knows me, they'll tell you that I am capable of bursting into tears while describing an especially moving long distance commercial.



These… Continue

Yesterday marked two months, or more precisely, 63 days since my mother passed. Where am I now?



While logic has never played a huge role in my life; I've never really grasped the need for it, it seems so complicated, so unnecessary; I have always enjoyed analyzing and attempting to quantify my emotional state.



Yes, I am a weirdo. Let me state for the record that I am completely comfortable with and in fact not a little proud of that.



So, in the spirit of… Continue