About

I had not posted anything on my blog for almost five years. I’d been busy, what can I say? The last few years have taught me a lot about grief so I thought I would use this blog to tuck away some of what I’m learning. Yes, tuck away because I’m sort of shy about this writing, but I want a place for it at the same time. My hope is that it will help to comfort anyone who might be grieving. So I changed the tagline from “wisdom from the second half of life” to “musings on grief.” I’m probably in the last third of my life anyway, or the last quarter, so might as well muse about grief.

My family lost three members in six months. My father-in-law died July 1, 2019 at the age of 97. My step-daughter died July 29, 2019 at the age of 36 from a brain tumor. My daughter died January 10, 2020 at the age of 28 from alcoholism. I left full-time ministry in June of 2021 in order to spend more time with my family. My daughter was pregnant with twins. I was a caregiver for my best friend who had been diagnosed with an aggressive, terminal cancer in February 2021. My ex-husband dropped dead June 28th; I postponed cleaning out my office at the church for a few days and held my daughter as she sobbed. My best friend died August 14th, sooner than expected. I have lost so much. We have all lost so much.

We live with false binaries. Your problems are worse than mine; my problems are worse than yours. My problems aren’t as bad as the problems of the world, therefore my problems don’t matter. Here’s the thing: your “problems” make you. You make the world.

My faith teaches that we are not alone. My faith teaches about interdependence, that “what affects one affects us all.” The core of every spiritual practice is to access love. Even if we have one fleeting glimpse of love, we will come back for more. We can’t rest in love forever. We have to do something with it. We have to tell our story. Our love story. My musings on grief are pieces of my love story. Thanks for listening.