To My Dead Grandmother on Mother’s Day

Hey Grams, there’s been so much goodness since you died. Kai got a new job, which means more time home with his family, I know you were praying for that to happen. I’m five weeks out from summer, and signed up to write a book. Maybe I’ll include that poem I wrote you in high … Continue reading →

The weight of death

My grandma is five lbs hanging around my middle. Whip cream weight slurped and shoveled from grande coffee frappaccinos on long I-90 car trips to hospitals and childhood home and Real Life. I tried to feel her hug again by adding flesh to my sadness and thighs. Joining a gym feels like living and betrayal. … Continue reading →

Most Precious One

What’s left of grandma, is the title of grandpa, hanging heavy on his coat rack thin shoulders. Stirring taco soup on the stove. Squinting at the tiny, scrawling handwritten recipe. Trying to feel a tinier bit less than half of something once whole. Still missing, “my most precious one,” he says to an empty future and his granddaughter … Continue reading →

A Goodbye Letter to my Grandma

Grams-

This Christmas, before we got to open presents, you and I sat on the couch in my parent’s living room. I was showing you the picture book I had made mom, and you seemed so happy to see all the pictures of kiddo and how big he’s gotten in just the past twelve months. And then you stopped on a page, looked up at me and said excitedly, “oh, you put these in here!” Continue reading →

Archetypes, Mindfulness, and the Aging Process

I embrace the paparazzi archetype, which might have been added since Carl Jung talked about archetypes. But it’s an archetype that I embrace freely, like the Rebel, and the Spiritual Seeker, and the Fool. This Paparazzi archetype has led me to insert myself awkardly into family situations, as I hold out my cell phone and … Continue reading →

A Month of Grandmas

“I just want to let you know, because people wait too long to say what they should say, but if anything were to happen to me, I want you to know, that you are a really good mom.” I was coming out of the bathroom at the Sunnyside Methodist church, and there she was, standing … Continue reading →

Seeing Dimly

For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known. 1st Corinthians 13:12 NASB I grew up memorizing Bible verses, for competition in Sunday School for 80’s slap bracelets, or as a way … Continue reading →