After Mark died and I started therapy, I told my therapist that I didn’t know what I was supposed to do with not only the absence of Mark, but the absence of his career that loomed so large in our lives. Like him it was layered and complex, but one of my favorite things in … Read more

There is a popular writer by the name of Glennon Doyle, who over the years, has coined the phrase “We can do hard things.” Her audience is predominantly women – the kind of women who have seen plenty of hard times and were desperately in need of a funny, poignant, and honest writer to push … Read more

Whenever we would go on road trips, Mark was constantly scanning the landscape for hawks and eagles. He’d point them out, and when I couldn’t see them he’d start yelling at me, “WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU? HOW CAN YOU NOT SEE THAT??!!!” I’d tell him that’s just how it went with me and dodgey … Read more

A couple of weeks ago I made a quick trip to Chicago to see my mom. I had not seen her since last April when she fell from an unlocked wheelchair and face planted on the ground. When she was admitted to the hospital, she had a UTI and a MRSA infection and I flew … Read more

The day before the anniversary of Mark’s death, I had a yard sale. It was supposed to happen weeks earlier, but it kept getting postponed and my neighbor and I (whose life fell apart the same time mine did) decided it would have to be Labor Day weekend or never. We plowed forward which is … Read more

Dear Mark, In a few days it will be four years since you died. “Four years already,” someone recently said which startled me because how do I explain that four years is always yesterday in my life. You were here, I went to Target and texted you to ask if we needed cat food, you … Read more

Sometimes when I think about the unfairness of these last few years, I want to gather every breakable thing in this house and fling it against a brick wall. Not because I think it would be especially helpful, but because the thought of it feels satisfying. I considered it when I was having the kitchen … Read more

As spring was winding down, I told my therapist that I was dreading summer. Both of our girls have summer birthdays, Mark’s birthday is on the first day of summer, followed by our anniversary, then the anniversary of our first date which both of us recalled with 100% accuracy unlike the date of our wedding. … Read more

The first summer after Mark died, the kids and I went to Yosemite for a family trip and to spread his ashes. I nervously decided to mailed the ashes to my daughter in California rather than have to explain to TSA what was in the box. “Your boy arrived,” my daughter texted me a few … Read more

On the day that Mark died, when I was frantically trying to find him, the police were frantically trying to find me. A close friend and neighbor of mine who was walking her dogs, told me later that she had seen them in front of my house about 10:30 that morning. When they couldn’t find … Read more